Upcoming Pittsburgh Event Seeks Balance in Drilling Debate
An upcoming event in Pittsburgh caught our eye. It’s called the Shale Exchange Workshop, being held Oct 29-31. The event seems to live at the intersection of “let’s do shale drilling” and “let’s be careful with the environment”–striking a balance. The event, as described below, is populated with many top industry speakers, but also will have representatives from at least one environmental organization, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), about the only so-called environmental organization we can personally stomach…
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Last Thursday, Precision Pipeline of Waynesburg, Pa was drilling under the Little Mingo Creek behind the Mingo Creek Church on behalf of Sunoco Logistics when the drill bit hit something really solid. It stopped the bit and led to drilling mud, often called bentonite, to leak into the the Little Mingo Creek causing a gray “sludge” to travel down the creek in Nottingham and Union townships (Washington County), PA. Bentonite is non-toxic and used in products from shampoo to deodorant and toothpaste. It’s also used to lubricate the drill bit and carry drill cuttings out of the ground. While non-toxic, a whole lot of bentonite in the water can, of course, suffocate fish and cause problems for wildlife that happen to drink it…
Lately it seems like a week doesn’t go by that a new pipeline project is announced. No one should be surprised, but of course we all are. It only makes sense: drillers have sunk a lot of holes in the Marcellus and Utica, and now all of that gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) needs a way to get to market. The northeast alone can’t handle all of the gas and NGLs being produced. Yes, the ethane cracker plants will help with regards to ethane–but there’s still way more ethane that even the planned three cracker plants can handle. And way more methane (natural gas) than the northeast can absorb. How do you get it to market? With pipelines. The first thing pipeline operators do is pick the “low hanging fruit”–in this case reversing pipelines and using loops to increase capacity and change the direction of the flows. But according to the midstream companies themselves, the low hanging fruit is about all picked. Now it’s on to the higher hanging fruit–so-called “greenfield” pipelines that cut through “virgin” land. Below we have a very interesting quote about decisions that will soon be made impacting the rest of this decade, along with a very useful chart of pipeline projects…
What are the nightmares that keep drillers up at night? Is it the prospect of having to pay big fines, like the biggest fine paid to date in Pennsylvania, announced just last week (see