The Barnett Combo Shale Formation

 

The Barnett shale formation is a rock formation that is located deep below the earth’s surface in Texas. It was discovered by a group of wildcatters in the 1950's, and in the 1980's some great technological advancement helped oil drilling companies to be able to extract natural gas resources from the Barnett Combo. The Barnett Shale Formation has been referred to as the largest area for natural gas resources in the United States at this time, explains Brian Alfaro, President of Alfaro Oil and Gas. There are some geologists who believe that this location is home to nearly 5 trillion feet of natural gas while others think that it could possibly hold up to 30 trillion cubic feet of the natural resource.

 

Over the years this location has been the subject of using new types of drilling technology. This versatile form of technology can use various fracking or hydraulic fracturing techniques to drill horizontally inside of the earth so that more access to natural gas will be granted. The Barnett Shale is very unique because it was the first major operation used to extract gas from shale bed rock in the United States.

Horizontal drilling is a fairly new technique that is used to drill horizontally inside the earth after a vertical drill has been used. Alfaro Oil and Gas, founded by Brian Alfaro, are active in the Eagle Ford Shale and utilize this technique  to drill into the shale formation. Fracking techniques are used to fracture shale rock in order for natural resources like natural gas and crude oil to be released. If more sites like the Barnett combo are located, then that would mean more natural gas resources would be available to the residents of the United States. If this were the case then we would no longer have to be so dependent on foreign countries in order to get our crude oil and natural gas resources from them. We would have more than enough of a supply here in the United States to take care of the demand that the residents here would need.

It has been estimated that the Barnett Combo is more than at least 6,000 feet deep and is very thick. So thick, in fact, that you would have to fracture the shale in stages in order to get all of resources out of the area. A Horizontal well would run you anywhere between 2 and 3 million and the Barnett Shale location have a chance to one day be able to produce up to 3 to 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. This  not only means that we could stop being so dependent on crude oil and start using natural gas as an alternate fuel source, but we could also stop being so dependent on foreign countries and the hold they have over our fuel supply as well as our government. These are just a few of the reasons that shale exploration is so important, notes Brian Alfaro.

The use of fuel has a strong hold on nearly everything. It affects our economy in more ways than one and can have a dramatic effect on how we deal with our neighboring countries. Future developments of the Barnett Shale area could be very tricky as the Dallas and Fort Worth areas are becoming very heavily populated which means there will be less open space left for drilling.