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Shale Oil and Natural Gas Basics
Working in the Oil and Natural Gas Industry
Shale Play Map
Shale Process Map - From Shale to Consumer

Watch these videos to learn about shale, the oil and natural gas industry, and what is involved in turning these underground resources into energy and products we use every day.

Shale: What You Need to Know
From Shale to Consumer
Taking the Oil and Gas from the Shale
Safety First - For Our Workers and Our World
The Benefits of Shale Oil and Gas

Watch these videos to see if working in the oil and natural gas industry is right for you.

Safety on the Job
What is it like to work in the industry?
Qualities for Success
What is in it for you?
Building Your Career

Learn more about the specific high-demand entry-level positions or careers in the industry.

Learn more about the active U.S. shale plays – areas where oil or natural gas has been found in the shale formations. Click a name on the map for information about that shale play

Upstream

The Upstream sector is what most people think of when they hear about the oil and gas industry and is often referred to as exploration and production (E&P). This includes searching for oil and gas reserves, leasing the land, drilling exploratory wells, and then operating the wells to extract the oil and natural gas from the shale.

Midstream

The Midstream sector provides the link between the wells that are often in remote areas and where the consumers are located. It involves collecting, transporting, and storing the crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (e.g., ethane, propane, and butane), as well as marketing the oil and gas products.

Downstream

The Downstream section includes refining and processing the raw materials into usable products, as well as distributing the products to the consumer.

Locating the oil and gas

The first step in the process is locating the oil and gas reserves. Geologists study a wide range of information including geological maps, seismic conditions, and images to determine areas with potential for producing oil and gas.

Leasing or purchasing land and mineral rights

Land agents lease or purchase land and underground mineral rights from the property owners in the areas where the oil and gas company is interested in drilling.

Producing the oil or gas

After the well is completed, separation and sometimes pumping equipment is installed to bring the oil or gas to the surface. Storage tanks are installed to collect any produced oil, natural gas liquids, and production water from the well.

It takes a relatively short time (70 to 100 days) to bring a well to completion, but the well can be in production for a number of years or decades. Production technicians (also known as lease operators, well tenders, or well pumpers) are responsible for monitoring the day-to-day operations of the well.

Drilling and completing the well

Once permits are in place, the oil and gas company usually hires a contractor to prepare and build the site and hires a drilling company to drill the well. Once the well is drilled to a specified depth, during the well logging phase measurements are taken to determine the presence of oil or gas. If the well is a vertical well, well logging is completed after drilling; if the well is a horizontal shale well, the logging can be done while drilling the lateral. If engineers and geologists studying the information determine that there is enough oil or gas for the well to be productive, the well is completed. Well completion includes the hydraulic fracturing (“fracing”) process for extracting the oil or gas from the shale. If there is not enough gas or oil present to be productive, the well is filled with cement, plugged, and abandoned.

Obtaining permits

Before drilling, the oil and gas company must apply for the necessary permits from the state’s regulatory agencies. Each state has its own regulations regarding permit application and drilling.

Collecting and Transporting

Oil: Crude oil that has been pumped from the well is collected in tanks located at the well site or sent through pipelines called gathering lines to tanks at a central location. It may then be sent through larger trunk pipelines or pumped into tank trucks to be taken to the refineries.

Gas: Natural Gas wells are also connected via gathering lines. While crude oil can be transported in its natural site, sometimes natural gas must either be compressed or liquefied before it is transported. The pressure of the gas is increased at compressor stations before it enters the larger intrastate and interstate pipeline systems and periodically during transport.

If other means of transporting the gas, such as tanker ships and trucks, are necessary, then the gas is converted to a liquid state by chilling to extremely low temperatures to greatly reduce its volume.

Marketing

Crude oil is sold to the refineries that create products for the consumers.

Gas marketers find buyers for natural gas. This may involve working with pipeline companies, distribution companies, or large end users such as factories, businesses, and schools.

Storing

Storage of oil and gas balances the fluctuations between supply and demand and helps ensure a steady supply of oil and gas products throughout the year. For example, natural gas can be produced and the surplus stored during the summer months to be available for the increased demand during the winter.

Crude oil is usually stored in above ground tanks that are often near the refineries. Most natural gas storage is in underground reservoirs.

Refining and Processing

Oil: At the refineries, crude oil is converted into usable products. The majority of these products are fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuels, heating oil, kerosene, etc. However, non-fuel products, including asphalt, road oil, and lubricants, are produced at the refineries as well.

Gas: Natural gas used for cooking and heating is 90% methane. It is processed to remove contaminants such as water and sulfur. This is done before being transported through the interstate pipelines. Depending on the geological conditions of the shale in some areas, the gas may contain natural gas liquids containing ethane, propane, and butane that need to be separated from the methane into distinct products.

Distributing

Oil: The consumer products (gasoline, diesel fuel, etc.) are distributed to retailers, such as gas stations and heating oil companies, that sell the products to the consumer.

Gas: Natural gas distribution companies deliver the natural gas via pipelines to consumers at their homes, factories, businesses, schools, etc.

Petrochemical Plants

While not directly related to getting the oil and natural gas to the consumer, petrochemical plants are sometimes included in the downstream sector. Petrochemicals are derived from the crude oil or natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane, etc.) and are used to manufacture a wide variety of products people use every day including plastics, medicines, medical devices, cosmetics, and much more.

Bakken

The Bakken Shale formation, located in North Dakota and Montana, is largest oil find in U.S. history.
The Bakken is primarily an oil play, but natural gas has also been found.
Oil was originally discovered in the Balkan Shale formation in 1951, but it has only been produced there commercially on a large scale in the past 10 years.
It was named after North Dakota farmer Henry Bakken who owned the land where the first well was drilled into the shale formation.
As of 2012, North Dakota was the second largest oil producing state, behind Texas, with 10% of the total U.S. crude oil production.
As a result of the oil boom, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the county (approximately 3%).

Fast Facts:

Location: Eastern Montana, Western North Dakota, and parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada
Size: 13,000 square miles
Depth: 4,500 to 7,500 feet
Thickness: 10 to 250 feet
Estimated gas reserves: over 2 trillion cubic feet
Estimated oil reserves: Estimates range from 4.3 billion barrels to 40 billion barrels.

Barnett

Barnett Shale in North Texas is one of the most active shale plays in the U.S., with over 18,500 wells drilled as of 2013.
The first major operation to extract gas from shale was in the Barnett shale formation.
In the 1980s and 1990s, new technologies in hydraulic fracturing and, later, horizontal drilling were developed and perfected in the Barnett Shale play. These technologies made extracting gas from shale economically viable and are now being used in shale plays throughout the country.
Between 2001 and 2011, more than 100,200 jobs were created and $65.4 billion in was added to the local economy as a result of the Barnett Shale.
Oil has recently been found in parts of the Barnett Shale, and it is known as the Barnett Combo Shale Play.

Fast Facts:

Location: North Texas
Size: 6,458 square miles
Depth: More than 6,000 feet
Thickness: maximum 350 feet in core areas
Estimated gas reserves : 43 trillion cubic feet
Estimated oil reserves: unavailable

Cline

The Cline Shale formation, also known as the Lower Wolfcamp, is one of the newest shale plays in West Texas.
By some estimates, this could be the largest oil play in the U.S.—larger than Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in South Texas.

Fast Facts:

Location: West Texas
Size: nearly 10,000 square miles
Depth: More than 9,000 feet
Thickness: 200 to 500 feet
Estimated oil reserves: 30 billion barrels

Eagle Ford

Eagle Ford Shale is one of the newest of the Texas shale plays, with the first productive well drilled in 2008.
It has an abundance of both oil and natural gas and is reported to be the largest oil find in over forty years.
In 2012, the Eagle Ford play supported over 116,000 jobs and added more than $60 billion to the South Texas economy.
It is named for the town of Eagle Ford, TX where there is an outcrop of the shale on the surface.

Fast Facts:

Location: Southwest Texas
Size: 20,000 square miles
Depth: 4,000 to 14,000 feet
Thickness: 50 to 350 feet
Estimated gas reserves: 150 trillion cubic feet
Estimated oil reserves: 7-10 billion barrels

Haynesville

Haynesville Shale, located in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, is the nation’s highest producing gas shale play, surpassing Barnett Shale production in 2011.
It is the second largest natural gas shale formation in the U.S.
Although the formation was identified by geologists about 60 years ago, it wasn’t until 2006 – 2008, that companies began drilling in the Haynesville Shale.
It is named after the town of Haynesville, LA where the formation was first identified.
From 2008-2009, it is estimated that over 90,000 job were created in Louisiana and $22 billion was added to the local and state economies because of the gas production from Haynesville Shale.

Fast Facts:

Location: East Texas, Southwestern Arkansas, Western Louisiana
Size: Over 9,000 square miles
Depth: 10,500 to 13,500 feet
Thickness: 200 to 300 feet
Estimated oil reserves: 251 trillion cubic feet

Tuscalossa Marine

Located in Central Louisiana and extending into Mississippi, the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale has both oil and gas.
While Tuscaloosa Marine Shale is not a new discovery; the first well was drilled in 1971 and some drilling has occurred over the past 20 years. However, it was not until 2010 that companies have shown real interest in this shale play.

Fast Facts:

Location: Louisiana and Mississippi
Size: 5,900 square miles
Depth: 9,000 to 14,000 feet
Thickness: 200 to 800 feet
Estimated oil reserves: 7 billion barrels

Woodford

The Woodford Shale formation in Oklahoma is both an oil and natural gas play.
Although gas production was first recorded here in the 1930s, the first horizontal wells were not drilled until 2004.

Fast Facts

Location: Southeastern Oklahoma
Size: 3,300 square miles
Depth: 6,000 to 12,000 feet
Thickness: 150 to 400 feet
Estimated gas reserves: 22 trillion cubic feet
Estimated oil reserves: 400 million barrels

Marcellus

Marcellus Shale, which extends over 575 miles under most of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is the largest shale region in the U.S. and the second largest natural gas discovery in the world.
The first Marcellus Shale well was completed vertically in Pennsylvania using “Barnett Shale” hydraulic fracturing technology in 2003.
The first horizontally completed well in the Marcellus Shale was in 2006. This started the current shale boom.
In 2010, Marcellus Shale activity supported nearly 140,000 jobs in Pennsylvania and contributed $11.2 billion to the region’s economy.
In 2012, Pennsylvania produced 10% of the total natural gas production in the U.S.
It is named after the town of Marcellus, NY where an outcropping of the shale was first seen.

Fast Facts:

Location: Most of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and Ohio, and small portions of Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia
Size: 95,000 square miles
Depth: 2,000 to 9,000 feet
Thickness: 50 to 350+ feet
Estimated gas reserves: 410 trillion cubic feet

Utica

The Utica Shale formation, which contains both gas and oil, is located below the Marcellus Shale.
Its potential field extent is nearly twice as large as the Marcellus Shale formation.
Most of the exploration and drilling in the Utica Shale to date has taken place in Southeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, where the shale holds more potential for crude oil and natural gas liquids.
It is named after the town of Utica, NY where an outcrop of the shale was first identified.
Because of the Utica Shale activity, Ohio is expected to add 204,000 jobs and $22 billion to its economy through 2015.

Fast Facts:

Location: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia and adjacent parts of Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ontario and Quebec, Canada
Size: 170,000 square miles
Depth: 2,000 to 14,000 feet
Thickness: 100 to 500+ feet
Estimated gas reserves: 15 trillion cubic feet
Estimated oil reserves: 5.5 billion barrels

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