The amount of water used varies a great deal from one place to another. Some shale gas developments use no water. Others—and Horn River is an example that people are probably familiar with—use a great deal of water. It's a function of the mineralogy, the geology, the depth, the length of the well, and the number of fracture stages that are being completed in each well. So there probably is no answer. We say that typically shale gas development requires something between 3,000 cubic metres and 60,000 cubic metres per well. That's simply a function of the geological variability and the depth requirement.
On November 23rd, 2010. See this statement in context.