Jeff Segor's Web Links - Oil and Gas Industry

While some complain that extracting natural gas from shale rock formations is tainting their water supply, others who have allowed drilling on their property are getting wealthy. Lesley Stahl reports.

Oil and gas companies deploy numerous technologies to optimize the performance of unconventional reservoirs. To increase returns from new shale plays, for example, you can monitor and adjust hydraulic stimulation treatments using microseismic fracture mapping. With our unified DecisionSpace® Desktop workspace, your engineers and geoscientists can visualize and analyze frac operations and microseismic data in real time-directly within the geologic framework. Maximize the impact of your fractures.

• Halliburton performed the first commercial fracturing treatment in 1949, and since then over 1 million wells have been successfully fractured with no record of harm to drinking water.
• Hydraulic fracturing has been effectively regulated at the state level for over 60 years.
• The Department of Energy's National Petroleum Council estimates that 60 to 80 percent of all the wells drilled in the next decade will require hydraulic fracturing to remain in operation.
• Over 99 percent of fracturing fluids are just water and sand.
• Companies already disclose the materials used along with the health, safety and environmental information that states, local communities and emergency personnel need.
• Proposals to restrict HF operations, like those being considered by Congress and at State Capitols, will eliminate trade secret protections, stifle innovation, eliminate valuable jobs and decrease oil and gas production at a time when our nation continues to face economic hardship.
• Halliburton spends nearly $50 million each year to develop its fracturing technologies, and they keep getting cleaner and more efficient. In fact, we have a new fluid system called CleanStim that is sourced entirely from the food industry! In addition, we continue to improve our capacity to clean and recycle water used on site, reduce our emissions, and reduce the number of chemicals we use.

The shale energy boom has been a job-creating star in a grey economy. The August jobs numbers show that oil and gas extraction payrolls grew by 1,100 employees to 197,300 on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 0.6% from July and nearly 12% from a year ago. Much of this is because of hydraulic fracturing. Jobs are being created in North Dakota and other parts of the country, including jobs supporting hydraulic fracturing. [Check out Shale Works for US to learn more.]

Hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracing”) has been used by the natural gas and oil industry since the 1940s. In Colorado by the 1970’s fracing became a routine completion technique for most wells. When properly conducted, modern fracing is a safe, sophisticated, highly engineered and controlled procedure. Because of the public’s interest in and concern about the potential impacts of fracing on public health and the environment, including surface and ground water resources, the COGCC has compiled the documents and links listed below. We hope that you find this information useful in helping to understand more about fracing: what it is, why it is done, how it is regulated, and how the public and environment are protected.

In closing, it’s a desirable goal to rebalance our economy’s energy production and consumption from fossil fuels to cheap clean fuels. For this to happen, our government must enact a true clean energy policy and aggressively fund related programs. It’s clear that this is not in the cards. In the meantime, the U.S. has little choice but to leverage its abundant natural gas reserves as a transitional bridge until such time that our government “walks the talk.”

Shale gas is transformative and can play a major role towards achieving energy security, economic prosperity and a cleaner environment. This will buy time while renewable energy develops into an economically reliable source of energy. Until our law makers wake up to the realities of their fiddling while we continue to burn dirty fossil fuels, these environmental and health issues will continue to plague our society.