Pennsylvania DEP fines Talisman for gas well-control incident

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Talisman Energy USA Inc. $51,478 for a January 2011 gas well-control incident during hydraulic fracturing in Ward Township, Tioga County.

“Equipment failure during fracing on Jan. 17 caused about 21,000 gal of hydraulic fracturing fluid and sand to be released for about 3 hr,” DEP North-central Regional Director Nels Taber said.

Fluid discharged from the wellhead under high pressure. Vacuum trucks recovered the fluid on the well pad. No streams, wetlands, or private drinking water wells were touched by the spill.

Regulators said the incident was caused by a needle valve that had failed and could not be shut off. To regain control of the well, the hydraulic valve above the master valve was remotely closed. Fluid was allowed to flow back through the production test separator. A new pipe connector called a hammer union was also installed and closed.

Recommend Total signs Utica shale JV with Chesapeake

Total E&P USA Inc. signed a joint venture agreement with Chesapeake Exploration LLC and affiliates of EnterVest Ltd. in which Total acquires a stake in the Utica shale in Ohio.

Terms call for Total to obtain a 25% share in the transaction signed Dec. 30 and effective as of Nov. 1, 2011. Total paid Chesapeake and EnerVest $700 million in cash.

In addition, Total agreed to pay up to $1.63 billion during 7 years in the form of a 60% carry of Chesapeake and EnerVest’s future drilling and completion expenditures.

http://www.ogj.com/articles/2012/01/total-signs-utica-shale-jv-with-chesapeake.html

Three years after drilling, feds say natural gas in Medina County well water is potentially explosive

GRANGER TWP.: A federal health agency says potentially explosive levels of natural gas at two houses in eastern Medina County are a public health threat.

The problems in the two drinking water wells appear linked to the nearby drilling of two natural gas wells in 2008, says the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That news contradicts repeated statements from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on the connection between the drilling and problems at the two houses at State and Remsen roads.

“We are the victims of fracking… and natural gas drilling gone wrong,” said Mark Mangan, one of the affected homeowners.

On Sept. 29, 2008, Mangan and wife, Sandy, found that their drinking water well had gone dry at the same time that a company was drilling for natural gas at Allardale Park about a half mile away.

When the water returned to the Mangans’ well in five days, it had an unpleasant taste and a rotten-egg scent. It was salty. It bubbled. It contained methane gas and a gray slurry of cement.

The Mangans could ignite the gas bubbles in the water from their kitchen sink, similar to what happened in the anti-fracking documentary Gasland.

...

The Granger Township case is one of a small but growing number of cases in the United States where contamination problems have been linked by a federal agency to natural gas drilling.
In a Dec. 22 letter to the U.S. EPA, the CDC agency said both families are still at risk from potentially dangerous natural gas levels. The agency concluded that “the current conditions are likely to pose a public health threat."
 
The agency looked at natural gas levels detected last November by the Granger Township Fire Department.
The levels of explosivity were 34.7 and 47.4 percent at wells at the two houses, the agency said. Hazardous conditions exist when levels surpass 10 percent, the health agency said.

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/three-years-after-drilling-feds-say-natural-gas-in-medina-county-well-water-is-potentially-explosive-1.255525

America’s hidden 60 million barrel a day industry

The biggest output of the U.S. oil and gas industry is not oil or gas but dirty water.

Every day, U.S. oil and gas producers bring to the surface 60 million barrels of waste water, with a salt content up to 20 times higher than sea water and laced with hazardous chemicals.

For the most part, they dispose of it safely, as required by federal and state laws.

Most of it is re-injected into oil and gas bearing formations to maintain pressure, or into disposal formations far below the freshwater aquifers.

Safe disposal of so much hazardous water should put into perspective some of the recent concerns about water management raised by opponents of hydraulic fracturing.

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Hydraulic Fracturing Letter NY City AIA Chapter sent to DEC

We understand the need to identify areas for increased sources of energy to serve the NYC metro area and the greater metropolitan region, especially if the Indian Point Nuclear Facility is closed.  However we firmly believe that New York State’s support of energy efficiency strategies is a far better way to accomplish a significant increase in the available energy supply.  Buildings in New York City use 95% of the electricity and we have the knowledge and the science to retrofit existing buildings and create new buildings that dramatically reduce energy consumption.  Drilling for natural gas does not improve energy efficiency nor does it reduce carbon emissions from buildings.  While natural gas reserves are in great supply, they do not address the issues of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to control the already devastating impacts of global warming.  Energy efficiency helps solve not only a resource problem, but a climate crisis.

 

There are many knowledgeable people in New York State who could be helpful in approaching the problem through energy efficiency initiatives.  These include the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter and its Committee on the Environment, Urban Green (The New York branch of the U.S. Green Building Council) and several enlightened real estate developers. For example, witness the exceptional work done by Malkin Holding’s at the Empire State Building.

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Another Ohio community rocked by quakes

The ODNR has said it does not believe deep injections triggered the small quakes near Marietta, but that has not stopped the state environmental regulators from digging deeper.

The ODNR soon will monitor the area with four new seismographs — much as it did in Youngstown.

“We don’t believe it’s related to injection wells at this point,” Larry Wickstrom, state geologist, told The Vindicator. “We want to dispel any concern as best we can.”

A local geologist at Marietta College, however, maintains there could be a connection.

“Some of the earthquake events have occurred after an injection of water,” said Wendy Bartlett, instructor of geology at Marietta. “Most geoscientists believe that can happen.”

State Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, D-60th, was alarmed when told of the ODNR’s additional monitoring near Newport Township, just east of Marietta.

“This is just blowing my mind now,” he said. “They are lying to us and covering it up without giving us all the information.”

Injection wells have been linked to — but not necessarily proved to have caused — earthquakes in Ashtabula County as well as the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Colorado.

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Electric plants shift from coal to natural gas

"My sense is you'll get small changes here," he said, since the current low natural gas prices are attracting market demand from around the world.

There are already federal permits for 3 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas exports, Apt said.

"Will we export that bounty, and if we do, will that drive up U.S. prices," he said. Natural gas sells for about $8 in Europe and $14 in Japan, but less than $4 here.

"They're not going to tear down the coal plants, because they've seen this movie before," Apt said of electric companies. "They will mothball those plants and start up the coal plants again" if natural gas prices rise.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120116/UPDATE/120116036/Electric-plants-shift-from-coal-natural-gas