Fracking Process Research Articles

Fracking for shale gas in the UK: property and investment issues

Purpose – Large-scale shale gas reserves have recently been identified under many parts of the UK. Development pressure for detailed exploration and possibly the exploitation of these reserves by hydraulic fracturing, popularly described as fracking is growing rapidly and seems to have UK Government support. With this in mind the purpose of this paper is to offer a general review of the possible development of shale gas reserves by fracking within the UK and to explore a number of the property and investment issues associated with such development. Design/methodology/approach – The briefing note begins with an outline of the characteristics of shale oil and the fracking process and of the initial developments within the UK and discusses some of the property and investment issues associated with such developments. The note is based upon information drawn from the internet sources, principally national and local governments, property, financial and environmental organisations and on visits to a small number of sites of exploratory fracking. Findings – The paper identifies a wide range of potential environmental impacts associated with the development of shale gas reserves by fracking and reveals growing awareness in the UK that such development could have a major impact on property values, on the availability of mortgages and on property insurance. At the same time the paper also suggests that financial institutions are increasingly taking steps to minimise risks to their investments and reputation from potential environmental impacts. Practical implications – The paper suggests a number of issues property managers and consultants will need to address in monitoring the impact of shale gas development by fracking on property values and it offers some guidelines to investment managers. Originality/value – This paper provides an accessible review of the development of shale gas resources by fracking within the UK and as such it will be of value to a range of property and investment management professionals and to students pursuing property and investment courses.

Health and fracking: should the medical profession be concerned?

The use of natural gas that is obtained from high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) may reduce carbon emissions relative to the use of coal and have substantial economic benefits for South Africa. However, concerns have been raised regarding the health and environmental impacts. The drilling and fracking processes use hundreds of chemicals as well as silica sand. Additional elements are either released from or formed in the shale during drilling. These substances can enter the environment in various ways: through failures in the well casing; via alternative underground pathways; as wastewater, spills and leaks on the wellpad; through transportation accidents; and as air pollution. Although many of these chemicals and elements have known adverse health effects, there is little evidence available on the health impacts of fracking. These health concerns have not yet been fully addressed in policy making, and the authors recommend that the voice of health professionals should be part of the public debate on fracking and that a full health impact assessment be required before companies are given the go-ahead to drill.

Hydraulic Fracturing in the European Union: Leveraging the U.S. Experience in Shale Gas Exploration and Production

Hydraulic fracturing has been the subject of much debate recently, both in the United States and increasingly in Europe. Advances in hydraulic fracturing technology have led to a shale gas boom in the United States, significantly lowering natural gas prices, and causing some foreign businesses to move manufacturing plants from Europe to the United States. In the United States, approximately 11,000 new wells are “fracked” each year, adding to the currently existing 35,000 wells. When compared to these numbers, European shale gas exploration remains in its infancy and commercial scale gas extraction has yet to be established. At the same time, many Member States in the European Union consider the exploration of unconventional fossil fuels essential for their energy security and independence from Russian gas. While natural gas is a cleaner burning fossil fuel than oil, the fracking process itself, as well as its requisite infrastructure, brings with it numerous environmental and health concerns. As shale gas exploration progresses further and is commercially developed, many previously unrecognized and underestimated concerns have become more prevalent. The use of fresh water during the process of fracturing and the potential for pollution of surface and groundwater are only two examples of such concerns. In fact, a clear picture of the types and quantities of chemicals being used as additives in fracking fluids injected into the ground and the risks they may pose for the environment or human health has been lacking. In the United States, under the Safe Drinking Water Act, a permit is required only if diesel fuels are used as additives in fracking fluids. Yet, there is no definite clarity with respect to whether operators are actually using diesel fuels as additives or how much is being used.With little or no experience in shale gas development, Europe is looking toward the United States as a potential model for its nascent regulatory framework. While there is a patchwork of EU directives that address fracturing, there are specific shortcomings due to the fact that shale gas development has not been pursued in Europe. The European Commission and the European Parliament continue to evaluate the impact of fracturing on the environment and human health, and have already released numerous studies and reports. It is the objective of these initiatives to ensure that the environmental risks arising from shale gas projects and cumulative developments are adequately identified and managed in Europe. In addition, the European Union is attempting to establish a common regulatory approach allowing for a comparable and coherent regulatory environment across the European Union and all its Member States.This article analyzes the existing regulatory frameworks in the United States and European Union as they relate to hydraulic fracturing of shale gas. It is argued that while the United States’ experience may serve as an example for the European Union, the shale gas boom in the United States has raised a host of environmental and health concerns that need to be addressed. At the same time, the United States may be well advised to consider some of the developments in Europe, where, for example, mutual non-disclosure agreements regarding damages to the environment and human health may not be allowed.

Fracking in Indian Country: The Federal Trust Relationship, Tribal Sovereignty, and the Beneficial Use of Produced Water

This Article focuses on wastewater discharges generated by hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “produced water,” onto Native American lands. Produced water discharges are a hazardous byproduct of hydraulic fracturing operations, and current federal laws do not require operators to disclose all contents of produced water, or any associated health and safety risks. This Article will explore the legal landscape that evolved to allow produced water discharges in Indian Country, using the Wind River Reservation’s history to explain how such a system develops. That system, today, includes a statutory and regulatory framework under two major environmental laws. First, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) ordinarily prohibits toxic waste discharges, but EPA’s regulations define compounds contained in produced water as a “special waste,” exempting them from the permitting requirements of the statute. Furthermore, despite their sovereign status, because Congress did not delegate regulatory authority under RCRA to tribes, courts have held that they therefore lack authority under RCRA to impose permitting standards of their own. Second, the Clean Water Act (CWA) prohibits water-based discharges of toxics contained in produced water, but EPA’s regulations allow produced water to be used “in agricultural and wildlife propagation” west of the 98th meridian, including in Indian Country. Theoretically, Congress has delegated authority to tribes to regulate water-based discharges under the Clean Water Act, but has imposed a series of standards that are financially burdensome and difficult for many tribes to meet, leaving many tribes, such as the Wind River tribes, unable to regulate because they lack this special status. Together, these statutory and regulatory exemptions under RCRA and the CWA form a “livestock loophole,” allowing untreated produced water disposal in Indian Country. In Part I, this Article describes the fracking process, how produced water is generated, and the toxins known to occur in produced water discharges. Part II will discuss the legal components of the livestock loophole, from RCRA, the CWA, and the regulations under each statute that allow produced water discharges on native lands and in native waters. Part III discusses the Wind River Tribes’ history, including various treaty negotiations with the federal government and the concurrent development of the federal trust responsibility to these tribes. Part IV will discuss the Federal Trust Doctrine and relevant provisions of RCRA and the CWA, as well as trade secrets laws, which serve to undermine the effective implementation of both statutes. Part V will discuss necessary changes to the RCRA and CWA regulatory structures to eliminate the livestock loophole and curb unregulated produced water discharges. Part VI concludes by encouraging federal officials at EPA to implement the suggestions from Part V to improve water quality, human health, the health of wildlife and domestic livestock throughout Indian Country.

Geomechanics of fracture caging in wellbores

This study highlights the occurrence of so-called ‘fracture cages’ around underbalanced wellbores, where fractures cannot propagate outwards due to unfavourable principal stress orientations. The existence of such cages is demonstrated here by independent analytical and numerical methods. We explain the fracture caging mechanism and pinpoint the physical parameters and conditions for its control. This new insight has great practical relevance for the effectiveness and safety of drilling operations in general, and hydraulic fracturing in particular. Fracture caging runaway poses a hazard for drilling operations in overpressured formations. Recognition of the fracture caging mechanism also opens up new opportunities for controlled engineering of its effects by the manipulation of the Frac number in wells in order to bring more precision in the fracking process of tight formations.

A Design of Wireless Sensor System for Water Quality Monitoring of Oil Field

In these years, petroleum and natural gas exploitation cause underground water pollution worldwide. And the leak of the crude oil and injection of waste water in the fracking process are two main reasons of water pollution during the exploitation. So monitoring the water quality in petroleum and natural gas exploitation area is more and more important to assure the drinking water’s safety for people who live nearby. In this paper, a wireless sensor system for water quality monitoring based on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is designed. This system uses XBee modules as the communication units and chooses proper sensors to monitor the key parameters for water quality including PH, turbidity, conductivity and temperature. And we also use LABVIEW to build an interface to monitor, restore and analyze the data collected.

Proving Whether or Not Contamination is Caused by Oil and Gas Operations

Oil and gas development is becoming increasingly controversial in the U.S., in part because of uncertainty about the causes of groundwater contamination in active gas fields. Debates about whether contamination is caused specifically by hydraulic fracturing and whether gas wells should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act rage, but without the relatively rare smoking gun, the question whether oil and gas development has caused contamination evades both scientific and legal determinations. The inability to determine causation is a problem that fuels public distrust of government and industry and deserves a serious effort to solve.In 2010, 2,682 wells were drilled in Pennsylvania, about 500 more than in Colorado’s Garfield County. Home to the Piceance Basin, Garfield County’s natural gas boom commenced in about 2004. That year, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) permitted 796 wells in Garfield County -- a number that climbed steadily to 2,888 by 2008, the peak year to date. Whereas oil and gas development was previously concentrated offshore and in more confined parts of the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountains, it is now occurring in more heavily populated areas such as Pennsylvania. Although the industry sparked controversy in its traditional territory, the volume of the public opposition has increased as development has invaded more populous regions and much of this controversy is fueled by concerns about water quality.During a 2009 public hearing on the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on oil and gas development, protesters in New York City held anti-development signs, interrupted official presentations and were escorted out of the venue. The New York legislature imposed a moratorium in November 2010 in order to allow the Department of Environmental Conservation to better study modern oil and gas development techniques, and federal legislators from New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado have called for federal regulation of the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process under the auspices of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Some of the reasons that oil and gas development is so controversial are that it is an industrial activity that is allowed under common law to encroach upon residential areas where it causes nuisance noise, odor and pollution. But it is also implicated in instances of ambient groundwater contamination that have not been fully resolved. This lack of resolution serves as a rallying cry for anti-development groups, and results partly from failures to adequately address issues of causation and proof. Public pressure, in turn, has spawned legislative proposals such as the so-called FRAC Act.

To protect the environment from shale gas drilling, panel urges voluntary actions

The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board is asking for shale gas producers to provide more information about their fracking processes, and for more R&D on the long term ... The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board is asking for shale gas producers to provide more information about their fracking processes, and for more R&D on the long term ...

Diseases of Canaries

Public concerns about hydraulic fracking are growing and scientists continue to analyze and evaluate its associated environmental impacts. However, a rigorous spatial analysis of environmental impacts is necessary to provide a perspective on risk based on proximity to fracking wells. This comment describes the environmental impacts of fracking within a spatial context. It emphasizes five key points: (1) the closer to a hydraulic fracking well, the higher the risk of groundwater and drinking water well contamination; (2) residents living nearest to a fracking well experience a higher human health risk due to exposure to gas emissions during the fracking process; (3) huge and high density gas emissions are detected and recorded close to fracking wells; (4) fracking induces seismicity and small earthquakes are recorded close to fracking wells; and (5) hydraulic fracking directly changes local environment and landscape characteristics. Spatial impact assessments are critical for improving understanding of the impacts of hydraulic fracking on the environment and society.