Fort Worth Flatulence Barnett Shale Land Drilling Rig Emissions Fix Proposal

Last night I got an email, subject line "Fort Worth Flatulence - Land Drilling Rig Emissions," from a person who works in the oil and gas industry, who says he would like to see me sponsor an initiative to sponsor a simple measure to establish oversight on the emissions being generated from the gas drilling operations, such as those operating in the Barnett Shale zone of Texas.

I have no idea how to sponsor an initiative or understand the technical stuff the oil expert is explaining. The best I can do to sponsor an initiative is to blog about it.

Below is what the oil & gas expert had to say...

I work in the oil and gas industry and have been watching the events surrounding these oil companies, the ongoing disaster, and also the various US proposals to improve and clean up these drilling operations across the nation. There are some real improvements to be made in this industry but there is a major improvement that could be made literally overnight that has been completely overlooked and ignored. This improvement could be instituted in a matter of hours to every single land drilling rig across this country with minimal cost to the oil companies. The fact is that none of the natural gas being burned on these land rigs while they are drilling oil and gas wells is being measured as an emission source. Not a single land drilling rig has a flare meter installed on it to measure emissions even though every single rig has a flare stack installed and in use.

There are currently 1535 land rigs currently drilling in the US today based on the Baker Hughes Rig Count report for this week (http://www.iadc.org/rigcount.htm). Every one of these rigs has a flare boom built in to burn gas that is released while drilling wells. Not a single one has a flare meter to measure how much gas is being burned while they are drilling these wells. All of the rigs drilling in the shale & tight gas plays such as Haynesville, Marcellus, etc burn gas as they drill through these gas producing formations. These formations are all over the US.

See these links:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/rpd/shale_gas.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/rpd/tight_gas.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/maps/maps.htm

http://www.energyindustryphotos.com/shale_gas_map_shale_basins.htm

These flaring rigs are regularly all over the news when they are close to neighborhoods and schools. Every other flare in plants and refineries in the US has a flare meter incorporated into it to measure emissions, except for these land drilling rigs. There are a number of companies out there with applicable flare meters such as GE(GF 868), Argus Green (The Canary), MISWACO (CarbonTracker), & Fluenta (FGM160) that currently sell and rent flare meters here in the US that are compatible with land drilling rigs. These drilling rigs & oil companies are hanging on to an antiquated exemption that is on the books because they did not flare regularly in the past when these rules were first created except in emergency blow out situations like what the Horizon experienced. Now in these new shale & tight gas plays around the country they normally flare twenty or more of the average fifty days it takes to drill the well as part of normal operations. Since all this flaring is now a normal part of operations, then these companies should have to measure these emissions that are coming from the well while it is being drilled. There are other reasons to measure this gas besides emissions. Royalties & taxes are not generally paid on the gas that is burned away during the drilling of the well. There is also benefit to the operator to know how much gas is coming from the well because you cannot reduce what you do not measure. In countries like Canada & Norway, where they measure flaring emissions while drilling, the release of greenhouse gases has been greatly minimized by taking extra steps to control emitted volumes based on the measured values.

These meters can be installed on a land drilling rig in less than one day and can have an immediate and measured impact on reducing the emissions from these drilling operations. Today, there are 1535 active flares on these gas drilling operations around the US today that are burning natural gas without any measurement or oversight. Sometimes these burning flares are sixty to eighty feet tall and burn day after day after day. This is the time for something to be done to minimize these emissions coming from these gas-drilling operations and have some oversight put in place.

I would like to see you sponsor this initiative to institute this simple measure and establish oversight on the emissions being generated by these oil companies while drilling these gas wells all around the US. I really think this issue will grab national support and attention virtually overnight considering the present circumstances in this country.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,

GD