Historic Ties to Kansas

The purpose of hydrofracturing or “fracking,” is to create and maintain fractures in rock, allowing trapped oil and gas to migrate toward a well. Not a new process, patent number 59,036 was filed by Col. Edward Roberts in 1866 on what he called the “Exploding Torpedo.” This process involved stuffing 15 to 20 pounds of gun powder into a iron cylinder, lowering it into a drilled borehole of oil-bearing strata to detonate.

Col. Robert's idea of adding water to the well bore, called “fluid tamping,” concentrated the concussion more efficiently. The term, “moonlighting” was coined when drillers shot at night to save money by avoiding permit procurement.

The experimental use of water as a fracturing agent was first used in the 1940’s in the Hugoton gas field in southwestern Kansas in the 1940's.

The first commercial use was in Duncan, Oklahoma. Simultaneously, Haliburton and Stanolind successfully fractured another well in Holliday, Texas. The fracturing of shale rock was not to happen until 2008.

In 1991 George P. Mitchell, of Mitchell Energy & Development, (now Devon Energy), pioneered the use of horizontal drilling for natural gas. The first drill went down a kilometer before bending to drill horizontally for another kilometer. The horizontal drilling allowed gas to be drilled under populated areas such as the Barnett shale bed beneath the City of Fort Worth, Texas.

Mitchell further developed the process by adding fine sand to prop open fractures. This technology was combined with a laundry list of chemicals, (many toxic), called “fracturing fluids,” which have become well-guarded secrets. Considered proprietary, they perform such functions as optimizing fluid flow and scouring the inside of the well casing. Only within the past month has an oil and gas company agreed to disclose such information, although that remains to be seen.

Environmental groups were disappointed when changes to the Clean Water Act in Energy Policy of 2005 exempted gas drillers from disclosure of the chemicals used. Vice President Dick Cheney argued that regulatory oversight would be difficult and costly. This exemption, called the “Haliburton Loophole” was a huge conflict of interest due to Cheney's position on the board of directors for Halliburton.

In 2007 the practice of cluster drilling, (up to 16 wells), from one industrial platform enabled operators to concentrate equipment in one place, reducing cost and accelerating well permit approvals.

In the late 1980s and ‘90s US depletion of oil and gas through conventional drilling began to be realized, forcing prices up in the 2000s. The US federal government, along with some states began offering tax credits or severance tax abatements for the development of the Bakken tight oil play. Technology and changes in government regulations launched large-scale commercial exploitation of shale gas and tight oil reservoirs.