WV Executive

"UNCONVENTIONAL" is a word commonly used in the natural gas industry today. It refers to production from different geologic formations and, most notably, shale. Drillers explore for gas in thick, black rock that looks to be about the consistency of a hockey puck. Natural gas is trapped inside the tiny pores inside the shale thousands of feet underground. It's long been known to be there, but only recently has new technology made it economical.

Those who find their calling in the natural gas field might also be called unconventional. It's a profession that is increasingly in demand without enough supply of talent to fill the future need for positions. The people who work in this field demonstrate a blend of old-fashioned knowhow, a grasp of cutting-edge technology and a detective work reminiscent of what you'd see on "CSI."

In Chesapeake Energy's eastern division headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia, geophysicists, geologists, petroleum engineers and geographic information systems analysts help pave the way for an energy-independent future by bringing new discoveries of natural gas from unconventional ways to the market.

Getting the Flow Samson

Tesfaselassie is a WVU College of Engineering and Mineral Resources graduate who uses his training to help release the gas, which is buried more than a mile underground, and allow it to fl ow to the surface. A technological advance called horizontal drilling has made his job more challenging. Now, natural gas producers can drill straight down about a mile and then bend the drill pipe 90 degrees and drill laterally through the shale. This opens up a broader surface area of the shale rock, enabling more of the gas to flow. It's a relatively recent development in Appalachia, and it has changed Tesfaselassie's job.

"It can be challenging as we move from shallow wells to multiple horizontal wells in one pad," he says. "These wells are stimulated in multiple stages with large volumes of water and sand. It gives me great pleasure to go out in the fi eld and monitor the progresses made on the projects I am involved with. We have very hard-working and dedicated fi eld personnel who make things happen."

Zack Arnold, a completion superintendent for Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC who was born in Parkersburg, returned to the region in 2006 after working in California. His job is to design and execute hydraulic fracturing in natural gas wells. A mixture of water and sand is blasted into the shale rock, creating tiny fractures that allow the gas to flow. "There are hundreds or even thousands of hours that go into preparing for a fracturing job, and when you're all done and you start seeing gas, that's gratifying," Arnold says.

A Sonogram of the Earth

We're getting ahead of ourselves, though.

How do they know where to drill?

If natural gas exploration is like arthroscopic surgery, then the pre-drilling diagnostics are like taking a sonogram of the earth.

When Chesapeake drills for natural gas, they successfully reach it more than 98 percent of the time. That impressive success rate is due, in large part, to seismic research.

Sound waves are shot deep into the earth by the use of vibrator trucks or very small explosives. Digital recorders then note the length of time it takes for those waves to reflect back up to geophone receivers on the surface. This data is processed to provide a cross-section of the rock layers that form the earth's crust. Properly interpreted, such information is a roadmap to success in the natural gas exploration industry.

Sissonville, West Virginia native B.J. Carney is at the forefront of this phase for Chesapeake's eastern division.

"The coolest thing I do is to be able to piece together bits of often very different and sometimes seemingly unrelated information to put together a hypothesis as to why oil and gas might be present in a particular location. It is almost like a detective trying to solve a case with just a few clues." Carney loves using multi-million dollar 3-D seismic data to help answer questions about what really is in the subsurface, and as difficult as 3-D seismic data is to gather and interpret, in West Virginia it's even harder.

"The ruggedness that makes our state so beautiful also creates challenges for us and tests the limits of the most modern computational and instrumentational technologies in existence," Carney says.

The seismic data, along with information about existing wells, pipelines, leased land and countless other factors, all are entered into a high-tech drawing board called Geographic Information Systems or GIS. GIS analysts like Marqkita Sexton give managers a powerful tool to create drilling strategies expeditiously in the fast-paced industry. "We have so many areas of interest that getting accurate and reliable data in our system can be time-consuming," says Sexton, a computer science graduate of West Virginia State University. "The more quickly we get the data in, the more quickly it becomes available to management." Sexton is one employee in a 10-person department in Charleston that is responsible for collecting the data all up and down the Appalachian Basin, which runs from New York to Alabama. The GIS mapping system, with proper interpretation, gives both a broad and an incredibly detailed look at the natural gas landscape.

Call these professionals in the natural gas industry highly-skilled, creative, determined and dynamic. Or call them unconventional.

Chesapeake in West Virginia

While global enrollments in geosciences and other university majors relevant to the gas industry are declining, demand is rising.

Chesapeake's primary recruiting strategy is to attract, hire and retain these very technical, highly sought-after individuals, and it's working. Fortune magazine named Chesapeake one of the Top 100 Companies to Work For this year.

Chesapeake Energy is based in Oklahoma City and entered West Virginia in 2005 by acquiring Columbia Natural Resources. "As Chesapeake Appalachia, we are bringing new technology and capital to the area, which will allow us to unlock its real potential," says Mike John, Chesapeake's vice president for operations.

The company's employee base is expanding to support this aggressive growth. While CNR employed around 330 people at the time of its acquisition, Chesapeake Appalachia now has 612 people.

Despite the Appalachian Basin's long history as a natural gas producing region, less than one-half of one percent of the wells in the area have been drilled below 7,500 feet.

"In this mature basin, many people didn't think oil and gas development here was very high tech, so they pursued careers in the industry elsewhere, " says John. "Now that Chesapeake is in West Virginia, we are encouraging them to come back home, and they are responding."

Energy Solutions

Employees at Chesapeake Appalachia take pride in the role the company plays in helping solve our country's energy crisis. "It is a huge driver for us," says Sexton.

"These unconventional plays have tremendous potential and I think we need to start using natural gas for more than heating, cooling or cooking," asserts Tesfaselassie. "If we would convert some of our vehicles to run on natural gas, we could potentially decrease our dependence on foreign oil."

Carney has a similar sense of mission. "I feel that if I can fi nd just a little more natural gas every day, it not only helps our current situation here in America but also will benefit my children's generation."