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Review of Well Operator Files for Hydraulically Fractured Oil and Gas Production Wells: Well Design and Construction

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Review of Well Operator Files for Hydraulically Fractured Oil and Gas Production Wells: Well Design and Construction EPA/601/R-14/002 l May 2015 l www.epa.gov/hfstudy Review of Well Operator Files for Hydraulically Fractured Oil and Gas Production Wells: Well Design and Construction Well Design and Construction May 2015 [This page intentionally left blank.] ii Well Design and Construction May 2015 Review of Well Operator Files for Hydraulically Fractured Oil and Gas Production Wells: Well Design and Construction U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development Washington, DC May 2015 EPA/601/R-14/002 iii Well Design and Construction May 2015 Disclaimer This document has been reviewed in accordance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. Preferred Citation: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. Review of Well Operator Files for Hydraulically Fractured Oil and Gas Production Wells: Well Design and Construction. Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC. EPA/601/R-14/002. iv Well Design and Construction May 2015 Table of Contents Disclaimer...................................................................................................................................................... 4 Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................. 7 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................ 8 Preface ........................................................................................................................................................ 10 Authors and Contributors ........................................................................................................................... 11 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Well Construction Overview and Definitions ........................................................................................ 6 3. Research Methods ................................................................................................................................ 9 3.1. Service Company Well List .......................................................................................................... 10 3.2. Survey Design .............................................................................................................................. 12 3.3. Well Operator Information Request ........................................................................................... 16 3.4. Data Extraction and Analysis ....................................................................................................... 17 3.4.1. Well Characteristics ............................................................................................................ 20 3.4.2. Construction Characteristics ............................................................................................... 21 3.4.3. Drinking Water Resources .................................................................................................. 22 3.5. Estimates of Well Design and Construction Characteristics ....................................................... 23 3.6. Quality Assurance and Quality Control ....................................................................................... 25 4. Analytical Results ................................................................................................................................ 26 4.1. Well Characteristics .................................................................................................................... 26 4.2. Construction and Completion Characteristics ............................................................................ 30 4.2.1. Casing Installation ............................................................................................................... 30 4.2.2. Cement Evaluation .............................................................................................................. 35 4.3. Well Construction Characteristics and Drinking Water Resources ............................................. 37 4.3.1. Surface Locations of Drinking Water Resources ................................................................. 37 4.3.2. Protected Ground Water Resources ................................................................................... 38 5. Potential Subsurface Fluid Movement Pathways ............................................................................... 42 5.1. Potential Pathway A: Inside to outside ....................................................................................... 44 v Well Design and Construction May 2015 5.2. Potential Pathway B: Along the outside of the well ................................................................... 47 6. Representativeness Analysis ............................................................................................................... 51 7. Study Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 54 8. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 56 References .................................................................................................................................................. 60 Appendix A: Survey Design and Confidence Intervals ................................................................................ 66 A.1. Optimization Algorithm .............................................................................................................. 66 A.2. Variance Estimation and Confidence Intervals ........................................................................... 67 References .............................................................................................................................................. 69 Appendix B: Well Operator Information Request ....................................................................................... 70 Glossary ....................................................................................................................................................... 73 Glossary References ................................................................................................................................ 77 vi Well Design and Construction May 2015 List of Tables Table 1. Number of well identifiers included or not included in this study. ............................................ 16 Table 2. Comparison between well identifiers from the service company well list and the 323 study wells .................................................................................................................................. 18 Table 3. Summary of data elements generally obtained from well files provided by oil and gas well operators .................................................................................................................................... 19 Table 4. Quality assurance summary for calculated cement bond indices. ............................................. 26 Table 5. Information submitted by operators to report the depths of protected ground water resources at each study well location. ....................................................................................... 39 vii Well Design and Construction May 2015 List of Figures Figure 1. Generic well diagram illustrating conductor, surface, intermediate, and production casing .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 2. Casing configurations reported in the well operators’ files. .................................................... 10 Figure 3. Well completion types reported in the well operators’ files .................................................... 11 Figure 4. Counties with oil and gas production wells that were reported by nine service companies to have been hydraulically fractured between approximately September 2009 and September 2010. ....................................................................................................... 13 Figure 5. Locations of the 323 study wells ............................................................................................... 17 Figure 6. (a) Age, (b) production type, and (c) orientation of oil and gas production wells hydraulically fractured by nine service companies between approximately September 2009 and September 2010. ....................................................................................................... 27 Figure 7. True vertical depths of oil and gas production wells hydraulically fractured by nine service
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