Fracking Guest Editorial GREG KOZERA | Shale Crescent USA If you have been following the Presidential race you are aware the topic of “fracking” has come up. My career started as an engineer with Halliburton. I designed frack jobs and was on the well site when they were pumped into the well. I gained a lot of experience in the oil and gas industry by the time I retired from Halliburton in 2007 after 33 years. I was going to be a motivational speaker and leadership trainer. In 2007 the USA was in the “energy crisis”. We were running out of oil and gas. OPEC determined world oil prices. Gasoline sold for around $3 a gallon. LNG terminals were being built around the USA so we could import liquified natural gas from our “friends”, Russia and OPEC. Manufacturing jobs were leaving the USA for Asia. The USA had lost its energy advantage and Asia had cheap labor. In 2007 the U.S. oil and gas industry understood the potential of shale gas. The technology was developing to extract it. I began to rethink my retirement. Energy was the biggest problem our country had. People had hope for wind and solar. Thirteen years later wind and solar account for just 10% of electric power generation. I realized I left the one industry that could have a positive impact on my family and our country’s future. I didn’t tell anyone I planned to come out of retirement. The next day a friend called looking for a sales manager for his drilling company. I was back in the industry until I retired for real in 2016. Now I work with Shale Crescent USA to bring high wage jobs to the region. What is fracking? Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” as the antis call it, is a process that happens to almost every oil or gas well after it is drilled and the casing is cemented. It requires pumping a fluid like water or a gas like nitrogen to create a small crack in reservoir rock deep underground containing oil or natural gas. The crack becomes a channel allowing oil, natural gas or natural gas liquids to flow to the well bore and eventually to the surface. Fracking is NOT new. Halliburton started it in 1947. The process has been performed millions of times. The antis are still looking for one well where fracturing has contaminated ground water. Water always takes the path of least resistance and that is not up where our drinking water is. The natural stresses (pressures) underground keep fracks from going into ground water. We know this from seeing fracks in coal mines.
For 60 years no one cared about fracking. Any environmental issues would have been easy to see. Fracking was a non-issue until the USA became a threat to Russia and OPEC in 2009. We were one of their largest customers. Suddenly we were a competitor. US oil on the world market dropped oil prices hurting Russia and OPEC costing them billions of dollars. Fracking is to an oil and gas well like tires are to a car. Almost every well no matter where it is requires hydraulic fracturing to produce economically. During my Halliburton days I had friends all over the world involved in hydraulic fracturing. The fracking process
“Many people have no idea what fracking is and how important it is to the USA.” hasn’t changed much. Large frack jobs were common in the 1970s. What changed was horizontal drilling technology allowing wells to be drilled 20,000 feet horizontally staying in the reservoir rock. These wells are fracked multiple times becoming world class wells. Many people have no idea what fracking is and how important it is to the USA. This includes ALL of the major media and many politicians including our presidential candidates. People in oil and gas areas are the most knowledgeable. We know millions of oil and gas jobs will go away if fracking was banned. That is true. It is also just the tip of the iceberg. Oil and gas are dependable transportation and heating fuels. They work 24/7 no matter what the Fracking continued on page 7
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OhioGas&Oil
OCTOBER 2020
