Barnett Shale

EPA releases hydraulic fracturing water study framework

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released a report describing how it will pursue its study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water supplies. "The EPA has designed the scope of the research around five stages of the hydraulic fracturing water cycle," it said. The five areas being studied for their impact on ground and surface sources of drinking water are: large water withdrawals; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids; injection wells and the fracturing process; spills of flowback and produced water; and inadequate treatment of wastewater. It will examine each issue using "existing data, scenario evaluations, laboratory studies, toxicity assessments and case studies." 

The agency began its research last year. It's expected to complete it in 2014. As of September, it said it had information on fracturing chemicals and practices on 24,925 wells fractured between September 2009 and October 2010. It will also take data from FracFocus, an intergovernmental disclosure site of fracturing fluids supported by energy companies. "Two rounds of sampling at five case study locations in Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas have been completed," and water samples "have been collected from over 70 domestic water wells, 15 monitoring wells and 13 surface water sources," a summary of the progress report said.

-- Jim Fuquay

Halliburton opens perforating research lab in Alvarado

Halliburton says it has officially opened its Advanced Perforating Flow Lab in Alvarado, where it studies ways to blast holes in rock containing oil or natural gas. The company says the facility can simulate reservoir conditions with pressures as high as 50,000 pounds per square inch and temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit. "We have the capability to reproduce the conditions we are going to find downhole, whether in deep water, unconventional resources or mature fields," said David Topping, vice president of Halliburton's wireline and perforating businesses. The lab is on the 800-acre campus of Halliburton's Jet Research Center, which it says it has operated for about 50 years.

-- Jim Fuquay

Information and disinformation

A couple of stories published in the past couple of days offer intriguing glimpses into the worldwide debate over the profitability and health impacts of shale gas production. The Associated Press on Sunday moved a lengthy report examining the accuracy of Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox's assertion, in a letter to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, that breast cancer rates jumped in the Barnett Shale, but nowhere else in Texas. Researchers from Duke University, the University of Texas Southwestern Health Science Center, Texas Cancer Registry and Susan G. Komen For The Cure all told AP that's not borne out by any evidence they have seen.

Government officials in Pennsylvania likewise reported that their testing has failed to support fears that radioactivity from wastewater posed a threat to rivers and public water supplies, while others said concerns about emissions from natural gas production operations needs to be weighed against the decline in harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are being idled in favor of gas-fired facilities. The Star-Telegram published the story Monday, and a copy is here.

The second item comes from Platts, an information service focused on energy markets. Russian gas giant Gazprom maintains the shale gas boom is unsustainable economically and threatened by regulatory issues, citing research by U.S. firm Pace Global Energy Services. But in a comment that could have come straight out of the Cold War, "Aviezer Tucker, assistant director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, says the Russian government is paying public-relations firms to spread 'myths and misconceptions' about fracking so that Romania, Bulgaria, China and other countries will remain viable export markets for conventional Russian gas. 'Where does the money come from to organize such [anti-fracking] demonstrations and brochure writing?' he said in an interview. 'All that seems to point to a common source, which would be Moscow.' " Platts also reported that "Gazprom announced last week that it sent a team of 'technical specialists' to a shale-gas field in China that is being developed by China National Petroleum Corp., the country's largest state-owned oil and gas company. Gazprom, which has been negotiating with Beijing to export Russian gas to China, did not say in its press release why it was sending technical experts to inspect China's shale-gas field" The Platts story is here.

-- Jim Fuquay