Fracturing simply refers to “Hydraulic Fracturing”. It has various other names such as hydro fracking or simply fracking, fraccing. It is a well stimulation technique in which the hard rock is fractured by injecting fracking fluid at very high pressure inside the wellbore in order to make the thick hard rock formation permeable (or generate cracks in it) so that the trapped natural gas, crude oil, condensates, water flow freely inside the oil well.

As the name suggests “Fracturing or Hydraulic Fracturing”, it is the process that is used to create cracks in the deep reservoir thick & hard rock by injecting the fracking fluid at very high pressure inside the wellbore. The purpose of this injection is to make the rock bed permeable so that the trapped natural gas, crude oil, condensates and water can flow freely inside the oil well and the production levels can be increased. This technique is generally used in low permeability rocks such as shale, sandstone and coal beds.

In the oil industry, this practice has found much appreciation in cracking shale rocks in USA and thereby converting the country from an importer of natural gas to an important player in exporting natural gas to other needy countries. This technique is also finding success in extracting hydrocarbons from coal beds (generating coal bed methane) and tight gas sands.