Chevron Sustainability in Marcellus Shale Development Introduction to Engineering Design

1. Chevron Sustainability in Marcellus Shale Development Introduction to Engineering Design EDGSN 100 Section 001 The Fantastic 4 / Design Team 4 Ian Adams, www.personal.psu/ita5016 , ita5016@psu.edu Justin Stewart, www.personal.psu/jms8432 , jms8432@psu.edu Jake Lancianese, www.personal.psu/jml6686 , jml6686@psu.edu Qiuhao Ding, www.personal.psu/qud12 , qud12@psu.edu Presented to: Prof. Berezniak Date: 12/09/2016

2. Objective Keeping sustainability and stewardship of the environment in mind, as well as the need to remain a safe and profitable business, design an opportunity to improve upon common industry practices in shale development. ‹#›

3. Project Sponsor Chevron is the project sponsor, which is the second-largest oil and gas company in the United States. Chevron is a leading international energy company with more than 58,000 employees worldwide, and consistently ranks as one of the best energy companies to work for. ‹#›

4. Natural Gas Natural gas forms over millions of years when organic matter such as plants and animals are covered by sediment and rock, eventually the organic matter decomposes and forms a gas. Natural gas in usually obtained by drilling into the earth and extracting the gas from where it was buried millions of years ago. Natural gas can be used for many things, from heating to even cooking, it is a very useful resource ‹#›

5. Marcellus Shale Marcellus Shale is a marine sedimentary rock layer located in the Northeastern United States from upstate New York to Tennessee. The depth to the top of the Marcellus shale ranges from 0 feet where it crops out in central Pennsylvania to over 9,000 feet in parts of southwestern and northeastern Pennsylvania. The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). ‹#›

6. Hydraulic Fracturing Process Site Development: Planning Phase Team members divide work to plan and design well pad sites, wells, and the supporting infrastructure and facilities. Well Site Preparation: Execution Phase Construct well pads, get up water storage, and generally get everything in order and prepared for drilling the wells. Drilling and Completing Wells: Performance Phase Drill the actual wells and fracture the shale with hydraulic fracking fluid in order to release the gas. Well Production and Operations: Operational Phase The wells are tied into production equipment and then into pipelines. The production equipment is responsible for separating the gas from the liquids. The produced water will be stored in tanks on site where it needs to be hauled off and treated or disposed of. ‹#›

7. Environmental Concerns Contamination of Drinking Water Aquifers Chemicals Used in Fracking Process High Water Usage Fugitive Methane Surface Runoff from Drill Pads Spills and Leaks of Hydraulic Fracking Fluids Leaks From Pits Liners and Storage Tanks Handling, Treatment and Disposal of Fracking Wastewater Infrastructure impact ‹#›

8. Project Description - Background Fracking requires millions of gallons of fresh water, generally somewhere between 3 and 5 million gallons of water. This is a very large volume of water that needs to somehow be stored on site so it can be used in the fracking operation. ‹#›

9. Project Description - Common Practice A common practice for storing the water required for fracking is to create a sort of man-made pond. You begin by digging a large pit that the water will be stored in, once the pit is dug it must be lined with a large plastic liner so that the water will stay in the pond. ‹#›

10. Project Description - Findings The first issue is that the pond takes up a large amount of space on a fracking site and also disrupts the area due to a large hole having to be dug. Another large issue with these ponds is the liner that they use to keep the water from just soaking into the ground. Because of the ponds size you must use many pieces of plastic and join them together in order to get a water tight liner to fill the pond. These liners often leak and once used on one site they must be disposed of and cannot be used again. ‹#›

11. Project Description - Recommendations Due to the issues with conventional water storage techniques, we recommend adopting a different method. There are many options for water storage, but the design that we suggest is a container that looks much like a tractor trailer. This container would be able to be disassembled in order to make delivery to the site more efficient. In addition, these units would be reusable, and not rely on a faulty, non reusable, plastic liner. ‹#›

12. Closing Through our research and findings, we believe that the methods of water containment used on fracking sites could be improved. We suggest breaking from the conventional method of building a man-made pond which has its drawbacks, and instead adopt the use of large collapsible, stackable, and reusable steel containers in order to store the large amount of on site fresh water that is required when running a fracking operation. ‹#›