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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on May 28, 2012 at 6:29am

Professor Siegle thoroughly debunked the absurd comments made by Myers.

With 50+ years of fracing history in literally millions of wells (Wordwide), this has been shown to not be a problem.

 

JS

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Permalink Reply by Thomas J Shepstone on May 28, 2012 at 9:36am

Jack,

You're correct.  Don demolished Myers.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on May 28, 2012 at 10:37am

The choice of azimuth at which the horizontal legs of the Marcellus wells are drilled is such that the well bore intersects the mazimum number of J2 joints present within the 60' +/- thick Marcellus Shale.

These naturally occurring joints offer a migration path that can be greatly augmented by hydraulic fracturing (accompanied by propants).

My guess is that the vertical extent of the fractures remains within the Marcellus Shale (a vertical extent measured in 10's of feet).

Taking advantage of the J2 Joints, the horizontal extent of the hydraulic fracturing likely extends no more than a few hundreds of feet from the well bore; again within the Marcellus Shale.

I cannot fathom how Myers could suggest vertical movement through 7000 +/- feet of (largely) impermeable rocks.

The Natural Gas within the Marcellus has endured folding and faulting, downwarping and uplift during a complicated Marcelus Shale trectonic history of almost 400 million years - nothing in the scope of hydraulic fracing could create a vertical avenue to the surface. I do not understand how any professional trained in the Earth Sciences could suggest anything so ridiculous.

 

All IMHO,

                     JS 

 

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Permalink Reply by Tom Copley on May 28, 2012 at 6:38pm

Different issue, same problem. How to get beyond the negatives, and start discussing the positives... As Prof. Considine points out, there are some.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas J Shepstone on May 28, 2012 at 9:12pm

Good editorial.

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