Posted on 12/20/2010 12:43:59 PM PST by epithermal
POTH — The oil and gas industry has proved it can tap massive natural gas deposits found in dense shale rock formations from New York to Texas. Its next big challenge: cleaning up the process.
A recent visit to a shale well site in this tiny ranch town about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio offers a glimpse of how it will happen.
Today, the roughly 5-acre site is crowded with big trailers and trucks. Heavy equipment runs even when idle. Some 50 storage tanks, each with a swimming pool's worth of water, line the perimeter. And workers and delivery trucks shuttle in and out. But in a few years, there is likely to be much less - of everything.
That's because oil and gas companies are coming under increasing pressure from the public and regulators to reduce the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing - a decades-old practice in which millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand are injected into a well to crack open rocks and free oil and gas reserves - as it becomes more widespread.
Oil field services providers that offer the service are also rethinking the current model to cut costs. Indeed, their oil company customers are demanding it as natural gas prices remain low and shale formations take center stage in the onshore U.S. oil and gas business.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
And, the outlook for anything but $4 gas is pretty bleak.
Good if you’re a consumer or manufacturer. Not so good if you’re selling gas.
Terrible if you have a replacement product.
Too bad the news of environmentally friendly drilling fluid did not reach his desk or maybe it did and like a good communist democrat (redundant I know) chose to ignore it.
Ping.
Maybe he just...(sunglasses on)...didn't see it...
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH!!!
If hydraulic fracturing is significantly curtailed or made significantly more expensive, $4 Nat Gas will sound like $30 crude oil.
Actually the NY governor vetoed a bill that would have been stricter on fracing. His action allows non-horizontal wells to continue to frac. If he hadn’t vetoed the bill even they would have been shut down. Here is a story on his action:
And the recent news that some newer fracing formulas are edible is false. They use some edible ingredients, but are still unedible:
Nothing else in that gas field is edible. It was silly to portray the material injected into it as edible.
If what you say is true that is better news. However, in this Sundays Buffalo News (not the most reliable paper) it reported he issued a ban.
In all honesty I would take the word of a fellow freeper than the Buffalo News.
Here is another report I saw that shows some recent fracing activity in New York:
“Low-volume New York Marcellus fracs tap gas
Dec 17, 2010
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Dec. 17 – Montreal independent Gastem obtained gas flows from Utica shale and two members of the Marcellus shale using permitted low-volume frac jobs in a vertical well in Otsego County, NY.
Gastem ran separate fracs on the Chittenango and Union Springs members of Marcellus at the Ross-1 well. Both succeeded, and the company completed the well for 200 Mcfd of gas. Current flow is 150 Mcfd after 4 weeks of flow. BJ Services ran the fracs.
Gastem also put a frac on Utica in November 2009 and tested that interval at more than 100 Mcfd. The frac involved a fluid volume under the state’s existing Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement guidelines with a maximum volume of 80,000 gal.
The company said, “The combined economics of the multilayer targets (Utica, Oneida, and Marcellus) will provide development opportunities until the NYSDEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) completes their review process for horizontal shale wells now scheduled for release on June 1, 2011.”
Gastem is completing a seismic program on existing leased property and plans to initiate development wells targeting “local gas for local use” in the area by mid-2011. Gastem is operator with 80% working interest in 33,000 acres.”
Well...in my case, it already does.
Selling my stuff, indexed, for example, at 75 percent of crude. It’s tough city.
I have no doubt that nat gas is the long term solution to reviving America’s industrial capacity and Barky is not going to stand in the way. Millionares are being made every day in Pennsylvania based on leasing farms and acreages. And there’s more to come.
There’s money to be made at $3 (altho it may result in heartburn to older well owners) and likely below $3.
it was also reported in the WSJ.
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