About Drilling

The Marcellus shale is an ultra-low permeability, naturally fractured reservoir that cannot be produced economically unless hydraulically fractured. The use of "light sand" or waterfrac treatments has considerably improved both the production performance and the economics in this reservoir. Because of its extremely low permeability, the drainage distance from a fracture face is very small, implying the need for a very large contact area with the reservoir to achieve commercial production. Fortunately, a fracture treatment in the Marcellus is more likely to be very complex rather than simple--this allows a fracture "fairway" to be created during a treatment, with a tremendous surface area created from many fractures at different orientations, all contributing to production.

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