That was beyond the reach of conventional drilling platforms, which stand on steel legs anchored to the ocean floor.
Parts of the anti-fracking movement will never be reconciled to fossil fuel extraction, whether through hydraulic fracturing or conventional drilling.
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Already, drillers have leased hundreds of thousands of acres throughout southern Illinois, including in scenic Johnson and Pope counties, which hasn't seen conventional drilling and where people aren't sure what to expect if a fracking rush becomes a reality.
According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report on unconventional gas shales, directional drilling (sometimes referred to as horizontal drilling) allows for access beyond the area below the drill to both oil and gas reserves in locations inaccessible to conventional drilling, including to difficult to reach offshore reserves.
But drilling through shale is nothing like drilling for conventional natural gas.
That's not a problem for many people in Illinois counties where conventional oil and gas drilling has been going on for over a century.
However, the applicant, Gerwyn Williams, has said the drilling would be for conventional gas, not shale gas.
Most of these companies are large, multi-billion dollar corporations, whose portfolios of potential drilling projects include a variety of unconventional and conventional properties across the U.S. and internationally.
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It largely abandoned the specialized deepwater-drilling business and built a fleet of the more conventional shallow-water rigs known as jackups.
The Vanguard, the Blue Marlin and the rest of the Dockwise fleet are ships designed to carry other ships, drilling rigs or anything else too large or heavy to be easily transported on a conventional ship.
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