Posted on 04/14/2015 7:52:53 AM PDT by thackney
...While there are a lot of myths that surround this technology...the biggest one myth, is that, it’s new technology.
The History of Fracking can be traced back to 1862. It was during the battle of Fredericksburg VA., where civil war veteran Col. Edward A.L. Roberts saw what could be accomplished when firing explosive artillery into a narrow canal that obstructed the battlefield. This was described as superincumbent fluid tamping.
On April 26th, 1865, Edward Roberts received his first patent, for an “Improvement” in exploding torpedoes in artesian wells. In November of 1866, Edward Roberts was awarded patient number 59,936, known as the “Exploding Torpedo.”
This extraction method was implemented by packing a torpedo in an iron case that contained 15-20 pounds of powder. The case was then lowered into the oil well, at a spot closest to the oil. From there, they would explode the torpedo by connecting the top of the shell with wire to the surface, and then filling the borehole with water.
This invention increased oil production by 1200_percent from certain wells within a week of being implemented. This also led to the founding of Roberts Petroleum Torpedo Company, which charged $100-$200 dollars per rocket, plus a royalty of 1/15 of the profits generated from the product.
The first form of fracking innovation didn’t take place until the 1930s, when drillers used a nonexplosive liquid substitute called acid, instead of nitroglycerin. This made wells more resistant to closing, thus increasing productivity....
This_study_lead_to the first experiment of hydraulic fracturing, which occurred at the Hugoton gas field, located in Grant county, Kansas in 1947. In this experiment, 1,000 gallons of gelled gasoline and sand were injected into a gas producing limestone formation with a depth of 2,400 feet. This was then followed by an injection of a gel breaker....
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
I met one of the guys who started work in Hougoton for Dowell right after fracing started up there. He began work in 1951 out of Liberal.
We did some of the very first 500,000 lb frac jobs. They were big at the time but pale by comparison to now. Didn’t think much of it at the time since we were too busy trying to cram all that sand into the rock.
Fracing sure isn’t new. I still have my Halliburton Frac Book full of Poisson’s ratio estimates for all kinds of rock. Estimating leak off rates was the hard part. Mini-fracs helped that but big pipe and lots of HHP are the best answer of all.
I still have about 40 feet of books, manuals and well daily reports carefully stored away in action packers up in the barn. I don’t know what I’ll do with them. Burn ‘em I guess.
Tectonic plates moving crack the rock all the time. Man’s little ol hole ain’t going to cause earthquakes.
Interesting stuff! Thank you!
Puleeze, this is a family oriented site............
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