Reply #8: At the wellhead they look like any other well...

[farmbo]

...But they drill down about 2500 feet further than a typical Clinton or Rose Well, then drill horizontally for as much as an additional mile. Thousands of gallons of hydraulic fluid are then pumped down under pressure to displace embedded natural gas in a process called "fracing". It is the content of this fracing fluid-- and its' effects on the existing water tables-- that has made this process controversial.

Since they're drilling and harvesting NG horizontally, up to 8 separate wells can be drilled from a single wellhead. This requires a much larger leasing pool-- usually as much as 1000 acres.

The drill sites would differ from conventional wells in the amount of water storage (and truck traffic) required for managing the hydraulic fracing fluid.