Engineering Natural Gas from U.S. Shale Deposits
Improvements in horizontal well drilling and subsurface rock fracturing technologies have greatly enhanced natural gas production in North America over the past several years. These technologies have significantly increased our known natural gas reserves in shale plays across the U.S., the largest in many ways being the Marcellus Shale. Natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation throughout southern New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and most of West Virginia can now be economically recovered and marketed. The Marcellus Shale formation serves as a good illustration for this industry boom. Jim Daley of Greenhorne & O’Mara Consulting Engineers helped Buildipedia.com investigate the basic engineering considerations of natural gas drilling and collection systems, along with the more traditional construction tasks required by this industry: surveys and stormwater management, as well as road, bridge, and pipeline construction.