Author Archive

Posted: September 21

CAMILLE FIOTI Times Leader CorrespondentLEHMAN TWP. — Issues involving the oversized gas drilling company trucks traveling through the township were discussed at Monday’s board of supervisors meeting. Tony Rutchauskas said he read a recent local news article about gas trucks that were too high to clear utility wires hanging over the township roadways. He said the wires had to be moved by hand for the trucks to pass through.

 “They failed to study the route,” Rutchauskas said of the gas company.

 Susan Rutchauskas asked if the township is responsible for maintaining the wires. Supervisor Dave Sutton said the utility that owns the wires is responsible for them.

 Joe Rutchauskas voiced concerns about a recent incident involving a large flat-bed truck owned by EnCana Gas Co. that was too large to navigate through the intersection of Ide and Meeker roads, thus blocking a school bus. He asked the board if someone from the gas company could direct traffic when its trucks need help clearing a turn.

 Supervisor Doug Ide said EnCana officials contacted James McGovern, superintendent of the Lake-Lehman School District, as soon as the incident occurred. Ide said he would request EnCana to provide its own traffic control personnel for the future.

 Catherine Tasco asked if the district has a system to notify parents in the event of a school bus delay. Supervisor Ray Iwanoski said he wasn’t sure what system the district used, but that school officials were involved with the traffic planning regarding gas company traffic routes.

 View article here.

 Copyright:  The Times Leader

By David Falchek (Staff Writer)

Published: September 17, 2010

A settlement filed earlier this month among pipeline company Laser Northeast Gathering LLC and others in its bid to be dubbed a utility would grant conditional power to condemn private land.

Those conditions and landowner protections, critical to how similar companies throughout the state would wield eminent domain, were heavily redacted from the public version of the settlement. Four pages and 25 items under “landholder protections” were redacted.

The settlement is not final. Because it is non-unanimous, parties are expected to file additional briefs. Administrative Law Judge Susan D. Colwell will make a recommendation to the commission; a final decision is expected early next year.

The settlement attempts to meet the need for midstream companies to connect growing numbers of Marcellus Shale wells to interstate pipelines in ways least intrusive to communities, the environment and individuals.

“The joint petitioners agree that this settlement is an innovative and reasonable resolution of this matter in a way that meets and promotes the public interest,” the settlement reads.

According to the agreement, before pursuing eminent domain, a pipeline company must do the following:

– Exhaust efforts. The company must negotiate in good faith with landowners to obtain easements.

– Notify PUC. The company must notify the PUC at least 30 days before commencing eminent domain and explain why it is being used.

– Selectively condemn. The company may not condemn property where the pipeline would result in the abandonment or destruction of existing structures, lakes or ponds.

– Landowner-initiated remediation. After negotiations have reached an impasse, landowners have the ability to opt for nonbinding PUC mediation before eminent domain is begun.

In the eminent domain process, a local board of view under the auspices of a local judge sets a value on the easement.

Public input

Environmental and natural gas attorney Steven Saunders said it is unusual for the PUC to release a settlement agreement with key provisions redacted.

However, PUC spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said settlement agreements often are not public and don’t become public unless they are part of a commission decision. She said petitioners have the ability to request items be redacted for competitive reasons.

The decision comes after several public hearings with the vast majority of speakers opposed to Laser’s bid for what is known as a certificate of public convenience. The document would set a precedent allowing natural gas collection and gathering companies to be treated as public utilities permitted to use eminent domain in exchange for another layer of regulation.

Parties agreeing in the settlement were the Silver Lake Association, the Office of Consumer Advocate’s independent Office of Trial Staff, and private individuals Vera Scroggins and William C. Fischer.

The settlement described negotiations as “intensive and time-consuming” and said the result “represents give-and-take by all parties.” Many intervenors refused to sign on, including other representatives of the natural gas industry.

“We hope these conditions that protect landowners, the environment and communities will become part of rulemaking,” said Earthjustice attorney Deborah Goldberg who represented Ms. Scroggins in the process. “That’s why others in the industry didn’t sign on – because they don’t want to grant those protections.”

Contact the writer: dfalchek@timesshamrock.com

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 16, 2010

The state environmental regulatory agency is pushing a natural gas driller it deemed responsible for contaminating residential drinking water to pay to expand a public water line from Montrose to Dimock Twp. in Susquehanna County.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said after a telephone conference with affected Dimock residents on Wednesday evening that he assured the families the department is “moving ahead” with plans to find a permanent solution to their water issues and that he “supports a public water extension from Montrose.”

That solution – if it is adopted – would be a tremendous undertaking: The centers of the two municipalities are separated by 6.5 miles, and people in Dimock currently rely almost exclusively on wells.

Mr. Hanger would reveal few specifics about the plan except to say that he has not received a final answer about the proposal from Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., which DEP found responsible for contaminating 14 residential water supplies in Dimock with methane as it drilled for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.

The secretary also said he hopes to join with the families “on or around” Sept. 29 to announce “how this situation is going to be resolved.” Earlier, through a spokesman, he said it would be a “major announcement” that would be made “with or without Cabot.”

“We’ll be ready to talk in detail with great specificity around the 29th when we wrap this up,” he said when asked to describe the proposed project Wednesday night.

Cabot spokesman George Stark said Wednesday the company “continues to work with the department and the residents to make certain that we investigate all the options for fresh drinking water along Carter Road” – the rural Dimock road where most of the affected residents live.

Cabot has said it is not responsible for the methane contamination, which it attributes to natural causes, but has accepted responsibility for restoring the impacted water supplies.

DEP suspended portions of Cabot’s operations in April after it found 14 of the company’s gas wells in Dimock were improperly constructed or overpressured and were causing methane to seep into water wells.

The company has paid more than $360,000 in fines and was ordered to fix the affected water supplies, but at least 11 of the 14 families refused Cabot’s proposed solution – methane elimination systems to be installed in each of the homes – saying the systems are inadequate.

Mr. Stark said the filtration systems are working in the homes where families accepted them and those systems remain one of the options the company is considering for restoring the water for the other residents.

Other options including drilling new drinking water wells and studying “what it would take to have line run from Montrose,” he said.

Dimock residents were relieved and enthusiastic Wednesday after speaking with Mr. Hanger.

“There’s never been a community that’s forced a gas company to really restore water,” resident Victoria Switzer said.

“I am very, very proud of his response to this,” she said of the secretary. “He’s looking out for the citizens of Pennsylvania.”

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 14, 2010

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – Hundreds of people gathered in this Southern Tier city on Monday to advise the Environmental Protection Agency on how to conduct a multiyear study of hydraulic fracturing and the impact it may have on drinking water.

Despite the New York setting, many of the speakers at the first sessions of a two-day hearing about the gas drilling technology turned their attention south of the state border to describe evidence of the promise, or peril, of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

The meeting is the last of four being held in the United States this year to gather public input about the scope and shape of the study, especially where to find appropriate places for case studies of the interaction – or lack thereof – of hydraulic fracturing and drinking water supplies.

Dimock Township in Susquehanna County was repeatedly offered as a perfect place to examine: It is an epicenter of Marcellus Shale gas activity in Pennsylvania, and state regulators have determined that water wells there were contaminated by methane associated with the drilling.

Victoria Switzer, a Dimock resident, testified that water from her household well was recently found by an independent lab to contain ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene – all chemicals frequently used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” process.

“EPA, do your job,” she said. “Please demand accountability. I offer you a case study: myself, Dimock.”

The Commonwealth was also invoked as an example of the benefits of natural gas drilling by New Yorkers who support the development of the industry in their state, which has a moratorium on Marcellus Shale exploration while it develops rules for regulating it.

“Drilling is safe and will bring prosperity to New York,” said Lorin Cooper, a member of the Steuben County Landowners Coalition. “The evidence is in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and everywhere else drilling has been allowed to proceed.”

The sides of the drilling debate were split at the hearing in their advice to federal environmental regulators.

Those in favor of drilling tended to ask for a narrow study – one that looks at the specific moments when a gas-bearing formation is fractured by high volumes of water mixed with sand and chemical additives. The industry and state regulators say there has not been a single documented case of groundwater contamination in the United States that can be attributed to that process.

“All that we ask is that this study be focused and not take forever to complete,” said Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala, who supports drilling and hydraulic fracturing. “I hope the EPA is not going to study the entire natural gas drilling cycle.”

Those opposed to the drilling asked for an expansive study – one that covers everything from how water for fracturing is withdrawn from rivers to the disposal of the salt- and metals-laden wastewater that returns from the wells. Some also encouraged the agency to cover other associated impacts, including air pollution.

“The EPA study must look cradle to grave,” said Barbara Arrindell of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, a Wayne County-based anti-drilling group.

Prior to the afternoon session, pro- and anti-drilling groups gathered on opposite ends of Washington Street shouting competing slogans of “Pass the gas” and “No fracking way.”

At the anti-drilling rally, where the props included a large plywood derrick, a Mother Earth puppet and a person dressed as “Frackin’stein,” the prop presented by Dimock resident Craig Sautner – a milk jug of brown water drawn from his well after intensive gas drilling occurred nearby – garnered the most response.

“I can’t say this is going to happen to your well. I’m not sure,” he said. “But do you want to take that chance?”

Down the road, Jim Riley, a landowner from Conklin, N.Y., said he does not have a gas lease, but would like one.

“First thing I’d do, I’d fix my house up,” he said. “I’d spend my money right here in the community.”

“I’m not afraid of the drilling,” he said.

The EPA meeting continues on Wednesday, with two sessions from 12-4 p.m. and 6-10 p.m. The agency is also accepting written comments on the study at hydraulic.fracturing@epa.gov through Sept. 28.

llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  Citizens Voice

By Steve McConnell (Staff Writer)
Published: September 10, 2010

Economic development organizations and landowner groups in Wayne County issued a stinging criticism Thursday against the Delaware River Basin Commission for enacting a moratorium on natural gas drilling and causing a deep negative economic impact by effectively halting development.

The pro-drilling groups, including landowners’ alliances that have secured more than 100,000 acres in Wayne County for gas development and the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, also warned the commission not to develop stringent regulations that would exceed current state environmental regulations because it could deter companies from operating there.

“We want to get the debate started and put our position out,” said Peter Wynne, spokesman, Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance. “We expect there is going to be a degree of severity that exceeds” the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The commission, which has regulated water resources in the four-state area that drains into the Delaware River since 1961, including a large swath of eastern Pennsylvania, has been developing its own environmental regulations over the industry in light of an increased interest in drilling for natural gas in the watershed.

While Marcellus Shale drilling is accelerating throughout the state and regionally in Susquehanna and Bradford counties, there are no producing wells in out the 13,539-square-mile Delaware River Basin, though Wayne County has lured multimillion-dollar land-leasing investments from several natural gas companies since 2007. The Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, encompassing 100,000 acres mostly north of Honesdale, finalized a land-lease agreement valued at a more than $100 million with New York City-based Hess Corp. and Houston-based Newfield Exploration Co. in late 2009.

Meanwhile, the commission enacted a drilling moratorium in May, in particular on production wells, but is allowing 10 exploratory wells to go forward in Wayne County while the regulations are developed.

The moratorium caused Newfield Exploration Co. and Hess Corp. to halt land-lease payments until the drilling ban is lifted. This could amount to the loss of $220 million in payments to leaseholders – not including royalties on producing natural gas wells – if Newfield and Hess Corp. decided to pull out of Wayne County, Mr. Wynne has said.

The pro-drilling groups’ 10-page letter, which was widely distributed to federal, state and local government officials Thursday and to the five-member commission board, urges the commission to consider the “unparalleled economic opportunities” gas drilling could yield while urging them to avoid the “infinite costs” associated with stiff environmental regulations. It also cites the poor state of the economy in Wayne County, a largely rural area with little to no economic growth in recent years, and how gas drilling could solve these “severe” challenges.

The letter also includes a series of recommendations the commission should take in its effort to regulate the industry. Efforts to reach Wayne County economic development officials were unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, the river basin commission believes it must protect the integrity of the Delaware River watershed – home to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System – while allowing natural gas drilling to occur.

Commission spokesman Clarke Rupert said the agency is trying to ensure that water used by an estimated 15 million people in four states is not negatively impacted by the industry, and criticism of their efforts to ensure that is unfair.

“Do you want to do it quickly … or to get it right? Our approach is to get it right,” Mr. Rupert said. Mr. Rupert said that he does not know what the makeup of the regulations will be, in part because once draft regulations are published it will undergo a series of public comment and public hearing periods that may tweak its final form.

The commission hopes to adopt final regulations by the end of this year, although that is subject to change.

Contact the writer: smcconnell@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 9, 2010

Marcellus Shale gas wells in Northeast and Northcentral Pennsylvania led the state in natural gas production last year, exceeding even industry predictions about the promise of the gas-rich shale, according to well production data released for the first time by the state.

In the 12 months between July 1, 2009. and June 30, 2010, the state’s 632 producing Marcellus wells released 180 billion cubic feet of gas – an amount that more than doubles Pennsylvania’s annual natural gas production from the years before the shale exploration began.

The well-by-well data were released for the first time since the governor signed a law in March that required Marcellus operators to report their production totals every six months and eliminated a provision that would have kept the data confidential for five years.

The production data posted on the Department of Environmental Protection’s website appeared much earlier than the Nov. 1 date the department set for making the information available online. It provides the first public look at how much gas the booming industry is pulling from the shale that underlies three-fifths of the state.

Eight of the 10 wells that produced the largest volume of gas last year are in Susquehanna County, including the top well – Chesapeake Appalachia LLC’s Clapper 2H well in Auburn Twp. – which produced 2.8 billion cubic feet of gas over 270 days. Of the top 20 producing wells, all but one are in Susquehanna, Bradford or Tioga counties.

Raymond Deacon, an analyst with Pritchard Capital Partners LLC, sorted the wells’ production depending on how long they were on line in order to measure their performance.

“It seemed like in every case, all the counties in the Northeast really stood out as being among the strongest in terms of production,” he said.

“It shows the Northeast looks much more prolific in terms of how much you’re getting out of the wells.”

Terry Engelder, a geosciences professor at Penn State University who studies the Marcellus Shale, said the production reports show that the expected ultimate recovery for the wells – the cumulative amount of gas each well will produce – is going to exceed predictions made by the industry in the earliest days of the shale exploration.

Dr. Engelder compared the average cumulative production for Marcellus wells drilled horizontally in the shale in a five-county core area in the Northcentral and Northeast part of the state last year to predictions about the average cumulative production of Marcellus wells released by Chesapeake Energy to investors in 2008.

The actual numbers last year surpassed the company’s expectations, even though “expectations were quite high,” Dr. Engelder said.

“Everybody is going to be happy with these numbers,” he said. “These numbers are huge.”

John Harper, chief of the mineral resources division of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, noted that the Marcellus wells that produced gas in the last fiscal year averaged almost 2 million cubic feet per day – “a lot better” than the earliest dozen or so Marcellus wells in the state that produced an average of only 89,000 cubic feet per day.

“The amount of Marcellus natural gas reported is very encouraging,” he said.

The production numbers also help create a fuller picture of the economic potential of the shale.

The Marcellus gas produced in the state last year was worth about $720 million, Dr. Engelder said – a large number but much less than the cost of drilling and developing the wells.

Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources, which reported a total production of about 35 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 402,000 barrels of natural gas liquids last year, said the report indicates what the industry believed, “which is that it is a very large natural gas discovery and could be one of the largest anywhere when it’s all said and done. It’s just going to take time.”

Mr. Pitzarella added that the “very promising” production numbers in the report represent the earliest stages of the shale development, and it will still take several years for each well to break even.

“It’s very much a long-term investment,” he said.

Mr. Harper pointed out the production data’s implications for a state severance tax on the shale gas, which the legislature plans to adopt by Oct. 1.

If a 5 percent tax had been levied on the value of all Marcellus gas produced last fiscal year, it would have earned the state around $40.5 million, he said.

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times

By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: September 7, 2010

TUNKHANNOCK – Four natural gas companies have leased mineral rights to substantial portions of land throughout Wyoming County, and all four have exploratory gas wells under way.

Depending on what those wells produce, the county could be on the brink of a potential natural gas boom.

“It’s beginning. It’s starting,” said Phillip Corey of Carrizo Marcellus LLC.

Carrizo is one of the four Cs: the gas companies most active in Wyoming County. The others are Chesapeake Appalachia LLC; Chief Oil & Gas LLC and Citrus Energy Corp.

The State Department of Environmental Protection’s active well inventory as of Aug. 30 shows wells are in various stages of progress for Carrizo in Washington Township; Chesapeake in Braintrim, Mehoopany, Meshoppen, Northmoreland, Washington and Windham townships; Chief in Forkston, Mehoopany, Monroe and Nicholson townships; and Citrus in Mehoopany and Washington townships.

However, only a few wells have been completed, and in some cases, natural gas production could be months away.

Carrizo: Seeking permits

Corey said Carrizo’s first natural gas well in Wyoming County, in Washington Township, is under way. The drilling rig arrived at the site Aug. 30, he said.

Carrizo also has two drilling sites picked out further south: one on a parcel owned by Barbara Shields in Monroe Township and one on the Sordoni family’s Sterling Farms in Noxen, not far from the Luzerne County border.

Corey didn’t know exactly when operations will commence at those sites, but does anticipate making preparations for drilling before inclement weather sets in, and to be “out drilling some time this winter.”

“We did file for our permits,” he said. “Now we’re waiting on the state to grant the various permits we’re going to need before we can drill.”

Besides permission from DEP, Carrizo will need a highway occupancy permit from Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to construct an access road off Route 29 for the Shields site, according to Corey. Carrizo also has to get Wyoming County planning and zoning approval.

Chief: Ready but reviewing

Drilling started on July 7 for Chief Oil & Gas’s first well in Wyoming County, on land owned by the Polovitch family in Nicholson Township. However, it has not yet been hydraulically fractured, Chief Spokeswoman Kristi Gittins said.

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” involves blasting millions of gallons of water deep underground to crack the shale and release the natural gas. Wells must be fracked in order to produce.

Gittins said it could take weeks or even months before the well is fracked. In new areas, Chief typically takes more time after drilling before scheduling the fracking, in order to gather and review information.

“There is no readily available pipeline for Marcellus wells in Wyoming (County) yet either, so even when a well is drilled and fracked and has shown that gas can be produced, it will still be months before any gas gets on a pipeline and off to market and any royalties paid,” she said.

One of the wells permitted and ready to be drilled is on Robert Longmore’s Noxen farm, but it’s too early to determine when work will start, according to Gittins.

“None of them are on the drilling schedule at this time so the earliest would likely be end of this year,” she said.

“But my canned statement is ‘drilling schedules change frequently.’ Bottom line, the wells are permitted and we could move a rig in any time. Moving in a rig to drill is not a process that goes unnoticed, and we are open with our plans and talking to the public about them.”

Chief holds public meetings to introduce the company to the community; it also holds informational meetings with local emergency responders and municipal officials, gives tours of its operations, and has participated with counties in starting gas drilling task force groups, Gittins said.

“Once we know more about our plans in Wyoming (County), we will schedule a community meeting,” she said.

Chesapeake: Preparing

Throughout the summer, Chesapeake has been filing hundreds of leases in the Wyoming County recorder of deeds office.

However, company spokesmen would not comment on future plans for expansion, although they did note that two wells have already been drilled and four more sites are in the works.

DEP records show that drilling started Aug. 27, 2009 on Chesapeake’s Skoronski well in Northmoreland Township, and on March 9 for the company’s Cappucci well in Mehoopany.

“In the coming year, operations in the county are expected to continue,” Brian Grove, Chesapeake’s senior director for corporate development, stated in an e-mail.

Citrus: Squeezing further

Steve Myers, director of Land and Legal Affairs for Citrus, said the company is drilling five wells in the Mehoopany and Washington Township area in partnership with Procter & Gamble, and now is looking to move into Meshoppen. He said Citrus is “just kind of moving out a step away from existing production.”

“We’ll go across the (Susquehanna) river to the west, drill on that side,” Myers said. “We’ll be all over that tri-township area.”

He stressed that expansion will depend upon success.

Looking to Luzerne

Myers confirmed that other natural gas companies, particularly those drilling in the southern municipalities in Wyoming County, are keeping an eye on what happens with Encana Oil & Gas USA Inc.

Encana has started drilling the first of two planned exploratory wells in Luzerne County at a site owned by Edward Buda off Route 118 in Fairmount Township. Site preparation is nearing completion for the second well, on Paul and Amy Salansky’s Zosh Road property in Lake Township.

Geologists, including Penn State professor and Marcellus Shale expert Terry Engelder, say there tends to be less natural gas around anthracite coal-producing areas. Route 118 is generally considered to be the dividing line, below which the natural gas has mostly been “cooked” out of the shale, but above which it is plentiful.

If Encana is successful in drilling so far south, it will encourage other natural gas companies, Myers believes.

But there’s an eastern boundary to watch out for, too: Wayne and Lackawanna counties may not be fruitful, according to Myers.

“There’s a line in there somewhere. As things progress and people drill closer to it, it will have more definition,” he said.

eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072

View article here.

Copyright:  The Citizens Voice

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 3, 2010

The growing Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling industry is taking hold in Northeast Pennsylvania, but the state’s newest economic player is not yet big enough in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton metro area to save the region from recording disappointing unemployment numbers in July.

Joblessness for the metro area has increased to a seasonally adjusted 10.4 percent – far higher than the seasonally adjusted 7.6 percent unemployment rate in Bradford County, a hotbed of Marcellus Shale drilling where unemployment dropped nearly 1 percentage point since last July.

Teri Ooms, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development, said the industry did not improve the region’s unemployment numbers because much of the drilling activity is not happening in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

She expects that active drilling in Wyoming County – the third county in the metropolitan statistical area – will spur some improvement in future unemployment numbers.

“I consider Lackawanna to be adjacent to the core drilling counties at this point,” she said. “There will be some residual employment improvement” because of that proximity, she said, but “we’re not going to see an immediate impact.”

She added that as the closest urban centers to drilling in more rural counties, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre will benefit from the influx of drilling nearby.

“People don’t do all of their living and working and procuring of goods and services within a single jurisdiction,” she said.

One factor that will improve the employment picture for local workers looking for jobs connected to the industry is the expansion of area training centers and programs for Marcellus Shale jobs.

Lackawanna, Johnson and Keystone colleges have all begun offering courses, programs and other training for industry-related jobs, while Pathstone, a human services agency, is coordinating training for more than 200 people in welding and diesel mechanics for jobs in the industry.

At Johnson College, which recently reopened its Welding Training Center after an eight-year hiatus, three students are currently in a four-month certificate program to learn the welding skills necessary for natural gas pipelines, Continuing Education Director Marie Allison said.

The college also is taking applications for its next session, which will begin in September.

But it takes time for welders to be trained in a new skill, and more time for them to master it, which means new gas industry welders will not be able to match the pay grade and ability of workers being brought in from other drilling states immediately, she said.

Once trained, local welders will be able to transfer their skills to other industries in the region even as drilling activity moves to other parts of the state or country.

“They won’t have to take (those skills) to other states,” she said. “They could stay local.”

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times

By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: August 30, 2010

FAIRMOUNT TWP. – From using non-toxic oil for drilling to installing three levels of blowout prevention, Encana Oil & Gas USA Inc. is trying to ensure nothing happens at its first exploratory gas well site that isn’t supposed to.

During a media tour of the Buda well site off Route 118 in Fairmount Township on Friday, Encana spokeswoman Wendy Wiedenbeck and Owen Stone, one of the company’s essential personnel who lives in one of the on-site trailers, showed the steps the company is taking.

“There are protocols in place to prevent incidents from happening. Owen’s job is to prevent those incidents,” Wiedenbeck said.

By state standards, Encana has been successful so far. Personnel from the Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas bureau perform unscheduled formal regulatory inspections at natural gas well sites to assess conditions before and during drilling.

The Fairmount Township drilling site has had several inspections, and Encana has no violations, DEP spokesman Mark Carmon said.

The department’s oil and gas division will also inspect Encana’s second exploratory natural gas well site on Zosh Road in Lake Township prior to drilling, he said.

When the drilling is complete at the Fairmount Township site, the rig will go to the Lake Township well pad, Wiedenbeck said.

That will take a few more weeks, she said. Encana’s drilling contractor, Oklahoma-based Horizontal Well Drillers, have completed the vertical portion of the Buda well, and will next be drilling horizontally in a southwestern direction, Wiedenbeck said.

Before doing so, Encana took core samples to see what lies beneath the surface. The natural-gas-rich Marcellus Shale is about a mile and a half underground, according to Stone.

Measurement tools similar to a global positioning system that are used while drilling allow Encana to “know where we’re going at all times,” Wiedenbeck said. The company isn’t allowed to go beneath land it hasn’t leased.

“We did a lot of science on this well,” she said.

But only when the well is complete and the results are reviewed will Encana have any idea of the natural gas production in the area, which will influence the company’s plans to move forward with additional wells, Wiedenbeck said.

Precautions and backups

The drilling rig is hydraulic and can be operated automatically – Stone compared it to a video game – meaning nobody has to be on the rig floor, which cuts down on opportunities for workers to be injured.

The well pad is surrounded by an absorbent cloth, then a thick, durable and impermeable plastic liner was laid and matting boards were set around the well equipment so that in the event of a spill, it can’t run off the pad, Stone said. A “spill shack” behind the well contains materials including pads to soak up fluids and a heavy-duty vacuum.

Underneath the tank of diesel used to fuel the equipment is a plastic “duck pond,” which would contain any fuel that might leak out.

“Almost everything has at least two, and in some cases three, types of containment in the event of a spill,” Stone pointed out.

The well has three blowout preventers. The first one, a “backside stack,” packs off the drill pipe all the way down the hole. The second, a “pipe ram,” hydraulically closes on the drill pipe, Stone said. The third, a “blind ram,” is used as a last resort: it closes and cuts off the pipe, he said.

All three backups are tested at least once every 72 hours. And each of the trailers where the essential personnel stays has a Pason monitor, with a screen that allows them to keep an eye on everything from how much drilling mud is in the tanks to how fast the drill is rotating, Stone said.

“Every physical thing that can happen on that rig is monitored on that Pason,” he said.

Drilling fluid, also called “drilling mud,” is used to clean and cool the drill bit and bring the cuttings up to the surface. Some drilling companies use petroleum-based substances such as diesel fuel.

Air and fresh water were used on the vertical well, Wiedenbeck said. For the horizontal drilling, Encana is using ABS 40, which the material safety data sheet at the site lists as a synthetic food-grade oil.

Stone said it is similar to baby oil. The only additives are barite for weight and clay for viscosity, he said, noting that all the additives are naturally occurring, non-toxic and not environmentally harmful.

The cuttings – material pulled up to the surface while the well is being drilled – are dried out and 99 percent of the oil is removed for reuse on the next well or to sell back to the company, Stone said. The cuttings are tested to ensure they meet state standards for disposal before DEP will allow them to be taken to a landfill, Wiedenbeck said.

The well itself has several strings of casings – layers of steel pipe and cement – to protect the shallow aquifers, Wiedenbeck said. They are run to 100 feet below any known water well, she said.

The cement is tested for compression strength, and DEP is “very diligent” about witnessing that the cement goes to the surface, Stone said. Wiedenbeck said the company has to do integrity testing, cement bond logging and pressure testing.

During the drilling, Encana has been taking water samples from nearby Ricketts Glen state park and nearby residents, Wiedenbeck said. There haven’t been any changes, she said.

Keeping it clean

According to Stone and Wiedenbeck, Encana prides itself on keeping its drilling sites in good shape.

Unofficial aerial photographs taken on random days and times show the Buda well site appears orderly and organized even when the company isn’t giving tours or getting inspections.

“We will continue to monitor both sites and ensure it stays that way,” Carmon said.

He said how a company prepares a drilling site and how they operate gives DEP an idea of what to expect. If the site is sloppy, officials “might want to keep an eye on it.”

Factors include whether the subcontractors know what they are doing, and whether the natural gas company is supervising them, Carmon said. For example, some of the issues with Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. were caused by contractors and even delivery people, he said.

“Given the nature of this business, the company and all its contractors and subcontractors have to be vigilant every minute,” Carmon said. “It’s the law, but it’s also their obligation, period.” He added, “Hopefully Encana will continue along that line.”

If people see anything unusual at a natural gas drilling site, they can contact DEP’s oil and gas office in Scranton, Carmon said.

“Everything is dependent on them continuing to do a good job. That’s they key,” he said of Encana.

eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072

View article here.

Copyright:  The Citizens Voice

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

FAIRMOUNT TWP. – Having drilled 8,100 feet straight down into the earth beneath the Buda 1H Well Pad, Encana Oil & Gas is now preparing to begin the horizontal leg of the first Marcellus Shale natural gas well in Luzerne County.

Company officials on Thursday provided a tour of the well pad off state Route 118, out behind Ricketts Glen Hotel, explaining various parts of the drilling operations and noting extra safety measures employed, given the proximity to wetlands.

As an automatic pipe handler lifted 40-foot sections of drill pipe, each weighing about 650 pounds, from a storage area on the ground onto the drill rig, Encana operations engineer Joel Fox explained the purpose of some of the equipment used on-site.

“This is one of the modern rigs with an automated pipe handler. … In the old days, you had roughnecks out there handling that pipe, two or three guys muscling around, fighting that pipe. This system’s a lot safer,” Fox said.

Joining Fox were Encana operations engineer Ashley Lantz and environmental health and safety coordinator Jarrett Toms.

Toms said there have been no health or safety related issues on-site since the drilling began last month.

Fox showed some large steel pipe, called casing, stored there. Surface casing is run down into the well bore about 425 feet and is “what provides the protection of your fresh-water aquifers. That’s been run already and cemented,” he said.

He also showed intermediate casing, which is run down to 2,150 feet. The intermediate casing is cemented inside the surface casing, and cement is also pumped around the exterior pipe to prevent gas from seeping up the outside of the casing and into ground water.

A third string of steel casing – production casing – will be run into the total depth of the well after horizontal drilling is complete. The horizontal drilling begins by drilling a curved path from a vertical well bore to 90 degrees over a 900-foot span.

“The pipe is pretty flexible. It’s stiff and strong, but it will bend,” Fox explained.

During drilling, rock and drill bit cuttings must be removed from the well bore.

Fox pointed out pallets full of bags of chemicals that are mixed with synthetic food-grade drilling oil to make the drilling mud.

“It looks and feels like baby oil,” he said. Emulsifiers are added to the oil and water to make the mud viscous so it will carry the drill cuttings to the surface of the well for removal.

When drill cuttings come up, they’re cleaned, mixed with sawdust, stored in covered containers until tested by the state Department of Environmental Protection and then hauled off to a landfill.

Fox also noted there is no reserve pit to hold the cuttings at the Buda site.

“This is an entirely closed system. In other words, there are no open pits that you hear people talk about a lot in the newspaper. All fluids are contained in tanks; drill cuttings, fluid is all in tanks,” Fox said.

“We consulted with DEP, and because we’re in a wetlands area, a closed system made a lot of sense,” Fox said, even though a closed system is more expensive to operate than using a reserve pit.

It also made sense to use a closed system at the site because the water table is high in the area, so a pit could not be dug very deep, he said.

To protect the ground from potential spills of any fluids on-site, the part of the well pad under and around the drill rig and all of the tanks and equipment is covered with liners hung over berms that look like barricades, Fox explained.

“We call these duck ponds. If something gets spilled, it stays in there. And we have what looks like a large Shop-Vac device. So as soon as any fluid or rainwater gets on that liner, we can suck it up like a Shop-Vac in your basement,” he said.

Fox also pointed out four monitoring wells the company drilled at strategic locations between the site and Ricketts Glen Hotel, which has the nearest water well.

Also on-site are five trailers for office space and to house some staff. There are five people with the drilling contractor – Horizontal Well Drillers – plus two to five Encana employees, drilling specialists and contractors on-site at all times.

It should take 10 days to two weeks to drill the 3,500- to 4,000-foot horizontal leg of the well, also called the lateral, in a southeast direction. The company uses computerized equipment near the drill bit to make sure the well bore is going exactly in the direction the engineers want it to, Fox said.

“It’s like a GPS on the (drill) bit,” he said.

View article here.

Copyright:  The Times Leader