Category Archives: tar sands

energy policy, fracking, natural resource management, tar sands

Public Citizen: On the Obama-Abe Summit, Regarding TPP

Leave a comment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2014
9:31 AM

CONTACT: Public Citizen

Lori Wallach
(202) 454-5107 lwallach@citizen.org

WASHINGTON – April 24 – “Ironically, if missing this do-or-die moment for the TPP seals its demise, then what will be characterized as a failure now may in fact save President Obama’s legacy, given that the TPP would cause more American job offshoring, greater income inequality and higher medicine prices.

After years of missed deadlines, unbending opposition by other nations to many U.S. proposals and scores of deadlocked TPP issues, Congress’ refusal to grant President Obama trade authority, growing opposition in many nations, and now Obama and Abe not announcing a breakthrough, TPP should be ready for burial. Instead, like some movie monster that will not die, TPP is being animated by a broad coalition of powerful corporate interests and we are told talks will continue.

Even if the continuing bilateral negotiations resolve U.S.-Japan auto and agricultural trade issues, there are scores of other deep deadlocks in TPP negotiations. This includes deep disputes on medicine patent and government drug reimbursement rate policies that would affect healthcare costs; limits on financial regulation, food safety and Internet freedom; disciplines on state owned enterprises; the expansion of investor protections that subject domestic laws to attack by corporations in foreign tribunals; and environmental and labor standards. As well, 60 U.S. Senators and 230 U.S. Representatives have insisted that TPP include enforceable disciplines on currency manipulation, but other TPP countries oppose this and to date the issue had not been addressed.”
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts.

fossil fuels, fracking, tar sands

Energy Wire: Baker Hughes phasing out ‘trade secrets’ in FracFocus disclosure

Leave a comment

http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2014/04/24/full

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter msoraghan@eenews.net
Thursday, April 24, 2014

One of the country’s major providers of hydraulic fracturing services plans to begin disclosing all the chemicals it uses in “fracking” fluid, without exceptions for trade secrets.

The policy of Baker Hughes Inc., rolled out quietly on an unheralded page of its website, is a split with competitors, prominent industry trade groups and even some regulators. It tracks with the recommendation of an Obama administration panel looking at FracFocus, the website where most companies report their fracking chemicals.

“Baker Hughes believes it is possible to disclose 100 percent of the chemical ingredients we use in hydraulic fracturing fluids without compromising our formulations,” the company’s website states, deeming the new policy “a balance that increases public trust while encouraging commercial innovation.”

Baker Hughes spokeswoman Melanie Kania confirmed that the website statement indicated a corporate policy that the company is moving away from asserting trade secret claims. The company plans to begin eliminating proprietary exceptions “where accepted by our customers and relevant governmental authorities,” according to the website.

A critic of the current system for disclosure said she was heartened by Baker Hughes’ change in policy. “If they’ve found a way to report with better disclosure, I’m on board,” said Kate Konschnik, policy director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program. “It’s a step in the right direction.”

But Halliburton Co., a Baker Hughes competitor, along with trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute (API) and America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), have defended the current level of protection for trade secrets. “A company’s trade secrets can be among its most important assets — the key intellectual property that allows it to keep its market position for its products or services and provide value to its shareholders,” API, ANGA and other industry groups wrote last month in joint comments about a government report about FracFocus.

Trade secret exemptions have emerged as the latest sticking point in the tug of war between environmentalists and drilling companies about disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking. Those chemicals make up only a small fraction of the volume of the fluid that is blasted underground to shatter rock formations and release oil and gas. But with modern “frack jobs” using millions of gallons of water, even small percentages can add up.

After initially resisting public release of ingredient lists, industry has come around to disclosing more and more data (Greenwire, June 21, 2010). In 2011, oil and gas companies coalesced around the FracFocus site. Steve Everley of the industry group Energy in Depth says the debate about trade secrets can overshadow how much information is already being disclosed. “It’s not a question of whether people are or aren’t disclosing. It’s a question of how,” Everley said. “Companies are disclosing a lot more than critics are alleging.”

But industry has held the line on its desire to keep secret some of the ingredients. They say relinquishing that would give away companies’ competitive edge. “Trade secret protection is critical to encourage innovation, the environmental and economic benefits of which are being demonstrated daily in the oil and gas industry,” Halliburton wrote in its comments on the government report. Earlier this month, North Dakota’s chief oil and gas regulator, Lynn Helms, derided proposals to force full disclosure, asserting that companies would curtail the use of newer mixtures rather than give up trade secrets (EnergyWire, April 17).

A ‘systems approach’ to disclosure

The oil and gas companies that operate wells have often cast the service companies, such as Baker Hughes, Halliburton and Schlumberger Ltd., as the impediment to disclosure. Operators have said they don’t usually know what chemicals service companies are using to frack their wells.
A Department of Energy panel reviewing FracFocus for the Obama administration reported earlier this year that at least one chemical ingredient was omitted for 84 percent of the wells listed on FracFocus.

Environmental groups see the secrecy as ripe for abuse, a way to hide the use of potentially dangerous chemicals. In Wyoming, environmental groups have sued the state, claiming trade secret exemptions are granted too freely (EnergyWire, March 13). The DOE panel brushed aside many of industry’s concerns in a report, saying trade secrets can be protected by reporting the raw chemicals separately from the additive products they go into.

The report calls this a “systems approach.” The common analogy for such a systems approach is that Coca-Cola Co. reports its ingredients on every can, but the recipe remains secret. Kania said Baker Hughes’ new initiative is intended to implement such a systems approach.
The DOE panel, officially a task force of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, said reducing trade secret claims would build public confidence. “The Task Force is challenging FracFocus to operate in a manner that encourages full disclosure with few, if any trade secret exceptions,” the panel’s report stated.

The task force said that in March, “at least one large oil field service supplier” was already using such a systems approach. Based on reviewing FracFocus filings, Konschnik said she believes that to be Schlumberger. A Schlumberger spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
But Halliburton, in its comments on the panel report, directly rebutted the panel’s assertions on the systems approach. “The method that the Task Force advocates for resolving the trade secret issue — the ‘systems approach’ to disclosure — simply will not protect proprietary information in the way the Draft Report suggests,” Halliburton wrote.
———————————————
Baker Hughes Corporate Policy
http://www.bakerhughes.com/products-and-services/pressure-pumping/hydraulic-fracturing/environmental-solutions-and-chemical-disclosure/disclosure

Hydraulic Fracturing Chemical Disclosure Policy
Baker Hughes believes it is possible to disclose 100% of the chemical ingredients we use in hydraulic fracturing fluids without compromising our formulations – a balance that increases public trust while encouraging commercial innovation. Where accepted by our customers and relevant governmental authorities, Baker Hughes is implementing a new format that achieves this goal, providing complete lists of the products and chemical ingredients used.

Fast, accurate and full disclosures supported by a dedicated team
Baker Hughes supports our customers in communicating important information about the chemistry used in our hydraulic fracturing fluids in the most expedient way possible. That is why Baker Hughes endorses FracFocus, the national hydraulic fracturing chemical registry managed by the Groundwater Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, and accessible at www.fracfocus.org. FracFocus represents a coordination of efforts with regulators, operators, and other stakeholders to promote responsible hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure, which is more comprehensive and well-site specific than that which could be provided by any individual company.
Our dedicated disclosure team uses systems designed to ensure that this data is accurate and that customers receive it quickly to meet regulatory deadlines. This process gives our customers confidence that Baker Hughes staff is always ready and available to help them through the process and troubleshoot any issues.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fracking, tar sands

Huffington Post & Associated Press Ohio Earthquakes Linked To Fracking, A First For Region

Leave a comment

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/ohio-earthquakes-fracking_n_5136110.html?ref=topbar

| by JULIE CARR SMYTH
Posted: 04/11/2014 7:39 pm EDT Updated: 04/11/2014 7:59 pm EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Geologists in Ohio have for the first time linked earthquakes in a geologic formation deep under the Appalachians to hydraulic fracturing, leading the state to issue new permit conditions Friday in certain areas that are among the nation’s strictest.

A state investigation of five small tremors last month in the Youngstown area, in the Appalachian foothills, found the injection of sand and water that accompanies hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Utica Shale may have increased pressure on a small, unknown fault, said State Oil & Gas Chief Rick Simmers. He called the link “probable.”

While earlier studies had linked earthquakes in the same region to deep-injection wells used for disposal of fracking wastewater, this marks the first time tremors in the region have been tied directly to fracking, Simmers said. The five seismic events in March couldn’t be easily felt by people.

The oil and gas drilling boom targets widely different rock formations around the nation, so the Ohio findings may not have much relevance to other areas other than perhaps influencing public perception of fracking’s safety. The types of quakes connected to the industry are generally small and not easily felt, but the idea of human activity causing the earth to shake often doesn’t sit well.

The state says the company that set off the Ohio quakes was following rules and appeared to be using common practices. It just got unlucky, Simmers said.

Gerry Baker, associate executive director of the Interstate Oil and Gas Commission, said state regulators across the nation will study the Ohio case for any implications for the drilling industry. A consortium of states has already begun discussions.

Fracking involves pumping huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground to split open rocks to allow oil and gas to flow. Improved technology has allowed energy companies to gain access to huge stores of natural gas but has raised widespread concerns that it might lead to groundwater contamination – and, yes, earthquakes.

A U.S. government-funded report released in 2012 found that two worldwide instances of shaking can be attributed to actual extraction of oil and gas, as opposed to wastewater disposal in the ground – a magnitude-2.8 quake in Oklahoma and a magnitude-2.3 quake in England. Both were in 2011.

Later, the Canadian government tied quakes in British Columbia’s Horn River Basin between 2009 and 2011 to fracking. Those led to stricter regulations, which news reports indicated had little effect on the pace or volume of drilling.

But for the region encompassing Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where energy companies have drilled thousands of unconventional gas wells in recent years, it’s a first. The Utica Shale lies beneath the better-known Marcellus Shale, which is more easily accessible and is considered one of the world’s richest gas reserves.

Glenda Besana-Ostman, a former seismologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, confirmed the finding is the first in the area to suggest a connection between the quakes and fracking. A deep-injection wastewater well in the same region of Ohio was found to be the likely cause of a series of quakes in 2012.

Under Ohio’s new permit conditions, all new drilling sites within 3 miles of a known fault or seismic activity of 2.0 magnitude or higher will be conditioned on the installation of sensitive seismic-monitoring equipment. Results will be directly available to regulators, Simmers said, so the state isn’t reliant on drilling operators providing the data voluntarily.

If seismic activity of 1.0 magnitude or greater is felt, drilling will be paused for evaluation. If a link is found, the operation will be halted.

“While we can never be 100 percent sure that drilling activities are connected to a seismic event, caution dictates that we take these new steps to protect human health, safety and the environment,” said James Zehringer, director of Ohio’s natural resources department.

Ohio has also imposed an indefinite drilling moratorium at the site of the March quakes. The state is allowing oil and gas extraction to continue at five existing wells at the site.

Such events linked to fracking are “extremely rare,” said Shawn Bennett, a spokesman for the industry group Energy In Depth, who described the new rules as safeguards that will prevent similar future quakes in Ohio.

___
Associated Press Correspondent Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh and AP Science Writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, natural resource management, tar sands

Tampa Bay Times: Oil company drilling in sanctuary fined $25,000 for violation that could be fracking by Craig Pittman

Leave a comment

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

Friday, April 18, 2014 7:44pm

The Texas company that stirred controversy by applying to drill for oil in Florida panther habitat was doing more with one of its wells than what its state permit allowed.
Related News/Archive

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Friday afternoon revealed that it had fined the Dan A. Hughes Co. $25,000 for violating its permit. The violation involves using a process that sounds like fracking — although the word “fracking” appears nowhere in either Friday’s DEP news release or the legal paperwork about the fine from 10 days earlier.

Instead, the 12-page consent order, dated April 8, says DEP officials became concerned about a “workover operation” that the Texas company launched without DEP permission in late December 2013. The well site is on an island surrounded by the National Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a major nesting site for wood storks. DEP officials told Hughes to stop right away.

Determining exactly what the company did is difficult because the DEP censored that part of the order, labeling it “a confidential trade secret.”

However, the DEP news release says Hughes “proposed an enhanced extraction procedure that had not previously been used in Florida. The company proposed to inject a dissolving solution at sufficient pressure to achieve some openings in the oil-bearing rock formation that would be propped open with sand in pursuit of enhancing oil production.”

That matches the dictionary definition of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking: “the forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas.” Florida Petroleum Council executive director David Mica said it may mean Hughes was fracking, or it could mean it used one of several similar procedures.

Fracking has helped the United States vastly expand its production of natural gas by allowing greater access to reserves once considered too difficult to tap. However, scientists have expressed concern that the chemicals used in fracking may pose an environmental threat. Studies of fracking sites in Texas, Pennsylvania and Wyoming found elevated levels of arsenic in the groundwater, and Ohio geologists found a probable connection between fracking and a sudden burst of mild earthquakes.

The DEP’s order, which resulted from negotiations with Hughes officials, says the company must provide an “estimate of the total amount of flowback material” from the injection and explain where and how it disposed of it. The types of chemicals used were not named.

The order also says the Texas company must put in four monitoring wells to watch for any pollution spreading beyond its drilling site that might contaminate drinking water wells.

The company also must pay for independent experts to consider “the potential for injected or native fluids to migrate through the deep geological formations or the well casing into surrounding groundwater-bearing zones” —in other words, the aquifer.

DEP officials would say little about the order and did not respond to a reporter’s request to interview Ed Garrett, who heads up the oil and gas permit program. Hughes officials did not return repeated calls. Neither did anyone from Collier Resources, which owns the land.

Joe Mule, as president of Preserve Our Paradise, has led protests against a DEP permit allowing Hughes to drill on the edge of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge as well as about 1,000 feet from the nearest occupied home in Naples’ Golden Gate Estates neighborhood. He said nobody from the DEP had told him or his neighbors of what the company had done.

Neither the DEP nor Hughes disclosed the violation during a recent hearing on the Golden Gate permit, said Preserve Our Paradise attorney Ralf Brookes.

Florida is not exactly Texas, where oil fields produced 588 million barrels of crude last year. But there are geological formations in the Panhandle and the area west of Lake Okeechobee that produced more than 2 million barrels in 2012.

As of last count there were 156 active wells in Florida, and the oil they pump out provided $700 million in tax revenue for the state. The oldest oil field is in Collier County, where the company that’s now Exxon drilled its first well in 1942.

Rising oil prices in recent years have spurred a push to increase drilling in Florida, and Hughes has been in the forefront. Last year the company boasted, “Hughes has been in the business of drilling oil and gas wells for over 50 years and enjoys an exemplary reputation as a domestic and international operator.”

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@tampabay.com. Follow him on Twitter at @craigtimes.

fossil fuels, fracking, Keystone XL, tar sands

Common Dreams: Study: Fracking Emissions Up To 1000x Higher Than EPA Estimates

Leave a comment

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/15-4

Published on Tuesday, April 15, 2014
New report suggests highly potent greenhouse gas far more prevalent in gas production than previously thought
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

frack
Marcellus Shale Gas Well, Lawrence County, Penn. (Flickr / WCN247 / Creative Commons license)

Natural gas drilling is emitting far higher levels of methane into the atmosphere than federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency have said, according to the findings of a new study released Monday.

“We identified a significant regional flux of methane over a large area of shale gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania in the Marcellus formation and further identified several pads with high methane emissions,” said the report, conducted by a team of scientists led by Purdue University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While past EPA studies have said gas well sites emit as little as between 0.04 and 0.30 grams of methane per second, this new study found numbers between 100 to 1,000 times higher than what the EPA has calculated, with levels closer to 34 grams of methane per second at some of the Pennsylvania sites. Methane is up to 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Of particular curiosity for the research team was the fact that the highest levels of methane were coming from well sites that were being preliminarily drilled for production, but had not yet gone through the controversial gas production process known as fracking.

“The methane emissions from the gas wells … are surprisingly high considering that all of these wells were still being drilled, had not yet been hydraulically fractured, and were not yet in production,” the paper reports.

“Methane plumes might be the result of drilling through coal beds,” said the study, “which are known to release large amounts of methane when mined. Fracking sites in the Marcellus Shale formation are commonly located over coal beds.”

As the Los Angeles Times reports, Monday’s findings add to “a growing body of research that suggests the EPA is gravely underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas operations.” The EPA’s research has largely been subject to the whims of the industry, the researchers noted, which has a say over where and when the agency has access to drilling sites. Monday’s Purdue report, on the other hand, used a plane equipped with technology to measure greenhouse gas levels in the air above the sites.

Meanwhile, the EPA released its own new set of methane information on Tuesday with a series of technical white papers detailing the sources of methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. The agency also opened a public comment period, which will be used—alongside peer reviewed input—”to determine how to best pursue additional reductions from these sources.”

The EPA said the white papers, which detail five main sources of methane leakage in the fossil fuel industry—natural gas compressors, hydraulic fracturing for oil, natural gas production, removing liquids in gas wells and pneumatic devices used in the gas industry—are designed to help the agency “solidify [its] understanding of certain sources of methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions in the oil and natural gas industry.”

______________________