Union Drilling says that its natural gas drilling fleet consists of 71 land-based rigs. It is predicting business will boom in all of its service territories from the Appalachian Basin through the Arkoma Basin in Arkansas and Oklahoma and into the Forth Worth Basin -- all containing rich sources of conventional and unconventional natural gas.

The company is one of dozens angling to get more access to natural gas reserves in the United States. The industry's arguments today have more resonance and namely that the demand for natural gas is greater than available supplies, causing prices to rise. But, their points are well-taken because of improvements in drilling technologies that are reported to leave a much smaller footprint in the communities in which they operate.

Strict amendments attached to the Clean Air Act of 1990 meant that natural gas became the "fuel of choice." But, as the commodity becomes more mature, domestic resources are becoming more difficult to find and produce. The larger and more conventional gas deposits have typically been extracted, leaving less conventional and more elusive gas to be mined. That's where modern drilling techniques that have been developed over the last 30 years come into play.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, unconventional natural gas sources that are buried deep such as coal-bed methane and shale will become the largest onshore supplies. It says that such supplies will increase through 2025. If accurate, developers must continue to find better ways to deliver gas-rich reserves. "Substantially all of our rigs operate in unconventional natural gas producing areas, where specialized drilling techniques, such as horizontal drilling and underbalanced drilling, are required to develop unconventional natural gas resources efficiently," says Union Drilling.

Horizontal drilling starts the same as "vertical drilling" but then moves laterally. It uses a drainage network to siphon off the available gas. Vertical wells, by comparison, go straight down. And while such a technique is cheaper than horizontal drilling, it is less productive. Underbalanced drilling, meanwhile, uses rigs that are equipped with air compression systems and which result in higher penetration rates through hard rock formations when compared to traditional fluid-based circulation systems.

As technologies improve, developers are increasing their production. In fact, the Natural Gas Supply Association says such progress means that fewer wells are needed on an annual basis. Advances in technology mean that one gas well today can produce two times as much as a single gas well did in 1985. The drilling footprint of well pads, meanwhile, has decreased by as much as 70 percent.

"Advances in exploration and drilling techniques have allowed companies to find (commodities) with much less impact than before," says U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, in an earlier speech.

Less Invasive

If the decision to drill for gas is made, producers must then determine where to establish the drill site. And that depends on the formation of the expected deposits as well as the characteristics of the subsurface geology and the size and depth of the natural gas that it is to be drilled. Once geologists determine the most optimal point to drill, developers then go to regulators to get the necessary permits that include the building of gathering lines that in essence create a tributary system from which any gas would flow.

The improvements in technology do not placate many environmentalists who fear increased production would mean more harm to wildlife and the environment. And nowhere is that battle more passionate than in Wyoming.

The Bureau of Land Management, which issues permits to private companies to drill on public lands, expects to grant more than 4,500 new permits in Wyoming this year, which is 300 percent more than in 2002. Altogether, close to 30,000 natural gas wells exist there -- an amount that may double in a decade. Wyoming is thought to hold 24 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

Green groups argue that accelerated drilling in the state has already taken a huge toll. But, they recognize the economic significance of the gas industry and say that if more drilling is to go forth, then it should be "directional drilling." That's when several wells are dug at various angles and all from a single starting point, which would reduce the overall surface area disruption.

Producers such as BP and EnCana emphasize that they are committed to preserving Wyoming's local habitat and have said they will spend millions to make sure it happens. They counter the push for "directional drilling," saying that as much as one-third of the recoverable gas at the Jonah and Pinedale Fields -- where about 29 percent of all deposits are thought to be -- would remain "unrecoverable."

Much of the focus may be on those natural gas deposits deep below earth's surface but the industry cannot neglect those supplies that are offshore and specifically in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. To better understand the risks, developers use computers to create a three-dimensional model of the subsurface layers. 4-D seismology then expands on this by adding time as a dimension, allowing exploration teams to observe how subsurface characteristics change over time.

Exploration teams can more easily find those natural gas deposits that sit offshore, thereby cutting drilling costs and searching times as well as minimizing the number of dry holes. "With a significant portion of the nation's oil and natural gas resource trapped in deep reservoirs, the new seismic technology represents a much-needed improvement that should bring more deep oil and gas to market," says the National Energy Renewable Laboratory that is helping to fund pre-drilling seismic projects.

Hurdles still obstruct natural gas production. But, developers have a reason to be positive. The increased demand for cleaner burning fuels is providing the impetus to improve drilling techniques. That, in turn, is enabling producers to deliver tighter gas from deeper wells in a less-intrusive way.



 

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