Water Obligations Associated with US Fracking Projects

The harvest of oil and natural gas from shale rock is achieved by a process known as fracking. This process uses a pressurized mixture of water, chemicals, and particulate (propant) to create and maintain fractures in non-porous shale rock formations containing oil and natural gas. Additional chemicals are then added to decrease the viscosity of the oil and increase flow. Shale reserves (shale plays) are thinner and distributed over a greater area than traditional reserves, but can be reached with the use of horizontal drilling methods and fracking. Introduction of these technologies has allowed for access to new reserves, changing the industry landscape of oil and gas availability, as well as geographic and geologic locations of where these resources can be found. However, the fracking process requires large amounts of another natural resource—fresh water. In 2014, CERES, a non-profit sustainability advocacy organization, reported an exploratory investigation of the water obligations associated with fracking. Building on these understandings, further spatial, environmental, and business analysis may well produce valuable layers of data on this expanding technology for this global industry