FRACKING 

Fracking as become a major issue front and center in today’s political scramble.    Supporters on both sides of the issue are adamant as though it is a new technology.  Fracking has been  around a long time just in different form as the technology advanced.

My father when a young man worked in the Oklahoma oil fields in the early 1920’s.  He worked on what was known as cable tools to drill the well.  They essentially pounded a hole in the ground and used a baler from time to time to bale the cuttings (mud) out of the hole.  They smelled and sometimes tasted the cuttings to determine when they had encountered an oil producing formation.  They put two or three sticks of dynamite in a can, lite the fuse, and dropped it down the hole,  The explosion fractured the oil producing formation.  Sometime nothing.  Other times a flow of  gas and crude oil to the surface.  If it came out a gusher they, to quote my father,  “ran for the weeds.”

When I worked in the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas in the 1950’s the technology had advanced.  We had large derricks with rotary drill bits to bore through the earth.  We had to drill vertical.  If we got off vertical as much as 2% we were in serious trouble and had to take corrective measures.  We had scientific instruments to indicate we had encountered an oil producing formation.  We periodically set steel casing (pipe) down hole through the formation and cemented it in place.  We ran a special tool down the hole into the formation. It essentially fired a series of bullets out into the formation.  We then hooked up huge high pressure pumps and pumped a combination of water, acid and quartz crystals (type of sand) down the hole until it fractured the formation thus releasing the gas and oil.  This was a critical moment but we didn’t have to “run for the weeds.”  We had huge blowout preventers installed at the top of the hole.

Today the technology has advanced to horizontal drilling a mile or more through an oil producing formation.  I retired years ago and am not knowledgeable of  today’s fracturing technology. I do know it is high technology and allows oil production from formations we knew about for years but never dreamed we would some day be able to produce such large volumes that we have become the world leader of oil production.

So, don’t get exercised about fracking.  It’s been here a long time.  It will continue to be here a long time as the technology continues to grow.