Compiled by Bill Hughes, Samantha Malone, and Juliana Henao – 2015
Modern oil and gas extraction no longer involves just a well, pump, and tank. The process can be so overwhelmingly complex that in lieu of taking a tour in person, it helps to explore each stage through photos. On this page you will find a virtual guide to the process of unconventional oil and gas extraction, as shown through the eyes of our Community Liaison, Bill Hughes. Eventually we will add a section on frac sand mining and transport, as well as other ancillary sectors.
Scroll down this page to explore the 14 key processes by section. Use the right & left arrows in each section to advance the images.
Oil and gas drilling is a complex process, but what you see on the road can tell you a lot about what is happening at nearby well pads & facilities.
1. Site prep: clearing, road access, grading, gravel, drainage
2. Drill rig set up: move in, install, drilling, remove rig
3. Hydraulic fracturing: sand kings, frac pumps, sand cans
4. Completions: condensate & brine tanks
5. Gas processing on well pads
6. Pipelines and Compressor stations
7. Compressors and Gas processing plants
Years before any dirt is moved to construct a well pad, a great deal of courthouse research has occurred to lease mineral rights, locate surface owners, survey a well pad & access roads, & negotiate terms of surface damages.
1. Acquire & store significant quantities of fresh water. Store nearby
2. Well pad sizes range between 4 & 25 acres
3. Cut the timber (current land use) & clear it out of the way; remove stumps
4. Primarily, this is the only stage where large earth-moving equipment is needed
5. Once the site is leveled, hundreds of dump trucks will bring in rocks to serve as the well pad’s foundation
16 acres disturbed for well pad & access road. Red circle shows the large earth moving equipment seen in previous slide.
Wetzel County, WV – Photo by SkyTruth
Gastar well pad during site preparation
Gastar well pad – post construction
Triad Hunter Ormet 2 well pad in Monroe County, Eastern Ohio – site prep
Triad Hunter Ormet 2 – well pad complete
Triad Hunter Ormet 2 – drilling occurring
Stone Energy Pad 3 LWWMA
Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area, WV
Wetzel County Stone Energy Bowyers Pad
Notice scale of earth moving equipment shown in previous slides
Assorted dump trucks hauling gravel to well pads
On left, Wetzel County, WV
Total minimum disturbed area = 8.2 acres
On right, Tyler County, WV
Land disturbance roughly 4 times greater
Prior to drilling
Prior to commencing the rig-up process, the conductor, rathole, & mousehole are completed. Special companies may be hired to begin drilling these three holes. Photo left shows the equipment used to drill the large diameter hole needed to set the conductor pipe on the well pad.
1. Drill one well to lock in the lease & move on
2. Drill the vertical portions of all proposed wells first with a smaller rig, just down to the kick-off-point (KOP) where the curved section will begin. Then follow up with a larger rig capable of drilling the turn to horizontal & the full length of the horizontal bore
3. Begin with a big drill rig that will complete both vertical & horizontal wells
With every strategy, there is always the option to return to the well pad to drill more wells. This can be done if the lease-hold (acreage) is large enough, either into the same formation, or into deeper formations — all from the same well pad.
The photos here were taken 6 weeks apart from approximately the same location. Perspective is not exact. However, using the red line under the mailboxes for reference, the size difference between the two types of drill rigs is clear.
Vertical on the left, Horizontal on the right
Dust, diesel fumes, & air pollutants may be released during this process, as shown in photo right.
Left: 20-inch well casing being installed
Right: 24-inch drill bit for 20-inch well casing for a Utica well, Wetzel County, WV
All of the equipment on site must be trucked in to the well pad. Narrow roads in rural areas, however, may make it very difficult for such long trucks to make the turns. This hazard can pose a significant danger to nearby cars, homes, infrastructure, and the trucks themselves.
Set up of Savanna 654 drill rig on EQT Well Pad, Wetzel County, WV
The portable crane (left) is used to set up the drilling rig
The centrifuge (right) is used to separate drill cuttings (shown in red container)
Once the well has been drilled, it must be cased & cemented.
Casing is steel tubing inserted into the well to stabilize the well walls. Casing is also used in an attempt to prevent outside contaminants from entering the wellstream, & to protect any fresh water reservoirs from the oil or gas that is being produced.
The small space between the casing & the untreated sides of the well is then filled with cement to permanently set the casing in place.
Halliburton “Red Tiger” cement mixing & pumping truck
The cement runs a long distance & is very thin (at most 1.5 inches), so it must be perfectly centered in the well bore for the entire length of the well.
The integrity of the well is difficult to inspect later and repair. Steel will eventually rust. Cement will crack.
Permanent bonding of cement to both well bore and casing is extremely critical.
After drilling is complete, the well pad is cleared off; some fluid storage tanks may be left on pad.
Wellheads are prepared to accept fracking hardware. Sand kings used to store sand, fracturing chemical tanks, & 12-18 fracturing pumps are moved onto the pad. A crane is used to hold the perforation gun brought in. Sand cans are set up to deliver sand
Shown here are liquid storage frac tanks, also called 500 barrel (bar) wheelies
Capacity: 500 bar/tank x 42 gal/bar = 21,000 gal/tank
13 tanks x 21,000 gal = 273,000 gal of water or liquids
Wireline control truck – to lower devices/monitoring equipment into well (left)
Hydraulic fracturing process releases diesel emissions (right)
Silica dust being released during hydraulic fracturing process
The largest need for water is during the hydraulic fracturing stage. Typically 3 ways to obtain & store the ~4-6 million gallons required:
1) Freshwater impoundment near well pad (this photo)
2) Temporary or semi-permanent storage tanks
3) Pipe it in from a large, high-volume nearby source
Construction of large, fresh water holding pond
Wheelie (aka liquid storage tank or frack tank) going to a well pad. These are always moved empty. They are not made to carry any weight. When seen in use on a well pad, it is difficult to know what might be in them. They can be used for fresh water, brine, condensate, flowback, drill mud, or fracturing fluids. Companies pay extra to get “certified clean” to use for just fresh water.
Temporary storage
More permanent water storage tanks serving as a centralized water system
Temporary water transfer pumps
Each fracturing contractor will also provide most of the other equipment required for the frack job, such as sand kings mixers, wireline truck, and control center.
Halliburton pumps on site with a diesel fuel supply. On average, there can be from 12-18 pumps on a well pad.
Blenders enable the mixing of fracking fluids, particularly with polymers.
Q10 hydraulic fracturing pumps at use. These pumps are known for efficiency and long-term use in fracking.
Diesel fumes are released from the fracturing pumps on a large scale, exposing workers to unsafe levels of toxins.
All the pipe fittings shown will be used in an assembly on a fracturing site to connect all the fracturing pumps together in a manifold and then connect them all to the fracturing head on the well.
Nabors completions and production services fracturing pump.
Much like Nabors, Pumpco Services provides hydraulic fracturing pumps.
Fracturing pumps, support equipment and hardware crane trucks.
Weatherford provides the Oil and Gas industry with drilling equipment and services, pumping and fluid systems, pressure control equipment, and more.
These tractor trailer trucks typically deliver sand to the well pad. This sand comes from places like Michigan and Wisconsin, where silica sand is found in large volumes.
Sand Cans at Stone Energy staging area. Staging areas can be on or off fracking sites and serve as storage areas for tanks and trucks.
Once the sand arrives on site, several sand kings are lined up and through conveyor belts and hoppers, they are able to transport the frac sand to the mixers.
Several sand kings parked alongside each other during fracking activity.
Clouds of silica dust often form around this equipment.
Sand Kings are often compartmentalized in order of sand grain size. This helps to know which compartment needs to be refilled or which ones are available.
They are also known for being quite long and pose a threat to the infrastructure of small roads near well pad sites.
This DOT placard pertains to hydrochloric acid. This is used in the acidizing aspect of hydraulic fracturing, where acid is pumped into the formations to facilitate the flow of fluid and gas.
This placard pertains to flammable gases and liquids such as fuel oils.
This placard pertains to the flammable class, particularly terpene hydrocarbons.
Kroff Chemical Company treats fracking flowback water on site in order to reuse it on other fracking operations.
1. Water is obtained from fresh water sources and used in the initial fracking job.
2. The flowback water is stored
3. Kroff Chemical Services analyzes and treats water
4. Treated water is stored and then reused
After flowback and flaring is complete, the well pad is cleared off.
Storage tanks are provided for condensate, also called Natural Gas Liquids. These are very explosive, volatile liquids.
Sometimes wireless sensors and telemetry are used to monitor pressure on well heads and on tanks.
This is a very antique storage tank placed on the well pad.
This one in particular was still in use on July 2014, even after the warranty had expired.
Tyler County, West Virginia.
Many times the condensate tanks have materials that will rapidly or completely vaporize at atmospheric pressure and normal ambient temperature.
Four stationary storage tanks on a Chesapeake well pad. Two of the tanks contain brine or produced water which will have to be properly disposed or recycled and used again.
The other two tanks contain NGL or natural gas liquids also called condensate, which is a valuable product and also very volatile and dangerous to transport.
Many well heads have wireless pressure transmitters mounted on top while they are in production.
After the drilling rig is removed, a well head is installed. The primary purpose is to seal the pressure of a well.
Gas Processing Units (GPU’s) are connected by pipes into the well heads. GPU’s separate raw gas into brine, condensate, and somewhat dryer, natural gas. Their controls and sensors are powered by solar energy.
Three phase separators.
The separation unit removes liquid
hydrocarbons and water from the oil
and gas stream.
There are eight GPU’s corresponding to eight wells.
Compressor stations clean, treat, and
pressurize natural gas.
Small compressors are used for vapor recovery units, drawing the gas vapors from the storage tanks.
Triethylene Glycol Dehydration Unit near a well pad. Glycol dehydration helps to remove the water vapor from the obtained raw natural gas.
Solar panels can be seen in almost every well pad. The sensors and transmitters are solar powered.
Throughout the complete shale gas horizontal exploration and production process, dozens of pieces of equipment and hundreds of trucks are used for many of the distinct steps.
One of the many pieces of equipment includes portable offices, seen here.
Portable cranes help in setting up the drill rig on a well pad.
With the high volume of equipment on underdeveloped roads near fracking sites, many accidents can happen.
Coil Tubing Trucks carry crucial coil tubing that can be used when a malfunction occurs in a drilling operation. Coil tubing can be used on a live well and helps with unclogging, cleaning and retrieving damaged equipment.
Diesel fuel trucks are some of many trucks on site. They supply diesel for fracturing pumps.
Particular chambers are designed to accept tubular shaped devices called “Pigs” that can be inserted or removed from a pipeline using gas pressure
Pigs can be used to clean out debris, unwanted liquids, or loose scale. Some even carry on-board electronic sensors & data storage, measuring wall thickness & distance traveled for later analysis
The pipeline installation process requires a lot of pipes.
Miles of cross-country pipelines transport the oil & gas from fracking wells to processors & then eventually to consumers
There are several steps when installing pipelines:
1. Clear the land
2. Strip topsoil
3. Lineup of pipeline
4. Trenching pipeline
5. Restoration
There is a lot of equipment on site during pipeline installation, including tow tractors, padding machines, flatbed trucks, dump trucks, motor cranes, welding machines, reseeding equipment, & others.
Some pipelines are wider in diameter than others. This particular one is a 42-inch pipeline.
This photo shows a temporary compressor installation in Mobley, West Virginia. Combined, these two compressors boast over 9,000 horsepower.
1,380 Horsepower compressor engine in Wetzel County, West Virginia.
Small compressor station and Glycol dehydration location.
Waste products from shale gas operations include:
1. Liquid waste such as brine and flowback
2. Sludges and semi-solids like tank bottoms
3. Concentrated TENORM material such as filter cake, filter socks and media
4. Solid waste such as drill cuttings
The labeling on these trucks can be confusing or misleading. When a waste truck is carrying brine, the state of Ohio requires the Underground Injection Control number (UIC) to be displayed. However, no other regulation requires any labeling when transporting oil & gas waste. The only two labels that exist are “residual” & “brine.”
Rich, black drill cuttings from the horizontal bore in the Marcellus Shale formation on the way to the landfill.
This is the Wetzel Landfill Entrance. A line of trucks holding drill waste cuttings await to dump their contents.
Between 2012 and 2014, landfills accumulated about 840,000 tons of drill waste.
After the drill cuttings reach the landfills, many times the moisture that drains out becomes leachate. The leachate goes into water treatment plants and then onto our surface streams and rivers. Leachate from drill cuttings has been know to contain radioactive levels of concern.
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