Fracking: The radical left's latest weapon of fear (independence, dollar, county)

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

You got called a liar for saying what you who live in the area have observed. I guess the video, which I have not seen, was like all of them, the man on it couldn't be one so you must be one. Ain't it fun to live somewhere and have someone call you a liar when you voice what residents have observed.

If you're talking about my comment, it was in jest.

[roysoldboy]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

There have been some great wells in Gonzalez County. I'll bet your first check was a real eye opener. The initial production drops away over a relatively short period of time, but you may be able get your cut of a 50 BOPD well for the next decade or more. Mailbox money is the best kind of money, don't you think?

The real eye opener here in Comanche County,Ks. was when the people who owned mineral rights on much of the land in the county got their tax bill just over a month ago. The oil people came in for months and started leasing at about $300 per acre and were up to nearly $500 when the tax bills came out. It seems like some fool law had been passed that allowed counties to charge up to $400 per acre in property taxes for people who had sold their interests in the land but held the mineral rights. Well the tax bill is to be $200 per acre and there is a real war going on now. When you get say $350 per acre and the county can get by with charging $200 it appears that only the county makes much money, to me.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

double speak, cementing is part of a fracking job, the fracking job failed because of a fault in the total process.

Next you'll be claiming that the BP blowout had nothing to do with drilling a well underwater...

In Bainbridge we have one type fault, in Colorado we have another, in youngstown we have another, in Dimor we have yet another. Look around the world, there are a long series of faults, all with differing mode of failure.

Keep in mind, this horizontal fracking is not the same process used 10 or 15 years ago. They have cranked up the pressure and volume greatly over the vertical wells of the past. Those changes will lead to more failures as they push the envelope.

And we luv how you spin industry talking point and gloss over, dismiss and ignore the problem fracking creates, the real harm caused already and the wasteland thus process is creating.

No. Cementing is part of the process of drilling a well and will take place regardless of where the well is drilled and whether or not a fracture stimulation will be performed.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

The real eye opener here in Comanche County,Ks. was when the people who owned mineral rights on much of the land in the county got their tax bill just over a month ago. The oil people came in for months and started leasing at about $300 per acre and were up to nearly $500 when the tax bills came out. It seems like some fool law had been passed that allowed counties to charge up to $400 per acre in property taxes for people who had sold their interests in the land but held the mineral rights. Well the tax bill is to be $200 per acre and there is a real war going on now. When you get say $350 per acre and the county can get by with charging $200 it appears that only the county makes much money, to me.

That's borderline criminal, no, actually that's plain criminal. Seriously, that's extortion. You're making me hate Kansas.

A mineral rights holder can not use and enjoy those holdings and they only way they will profit is from the outright sale of the mineral rights or from royalties on the sale of production. They will pay taxes on the bonus consideration transaction at the applicable rate already so I'm having trouble getting my brain around how that can be legal. The only way that it makes sense is to charge ad valorem taxes on royalties. Lawsuit much?

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

WARNING, today's fracking is NOT the fracking of the 20th century. Much of the industry cited data refers to old technology.

As an afterthought, that's probably a good thing. The way fracture stimulation was originally performed was to set a plug at the desired depth, prepare a vial of nitroglycerin, drop it down the hole and run like hell. The explosion shattered the formation and created a highly conductive path to the wellbore. This is why frac hands are still sometimes referred to as "shooters".

After that, napalm was used as a gellant in oil-based carrier fluids (really nasty stuff) and there were no controls on the introduction of anaerobes to the formations underground. This is why many plays with a long history of prolific production now produce extremely high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide in concert with oil & natural gas.

Modern frac fluids are usually comprised* of either polyacrylamide for "slickwater", which is about as biologically inert as nylon, or hydrated guar gel (which you can eat). Guar systems are usually cross-linked with borates (sometimes the same boric acid powder that your grandmother used to sprinkle under the baseboards is used) and broken with either a guar enzyme or a simple oxidative breaker. The only problem with having a complex carbohydrate as the base of your frac fluid is that it will turn into food underground for any bacteria that is incidental to the water used as the carrier. To address this, most frac fluid will contain a non-oxidative biocide agent (can't be bleach or you degrade the cross-link). This and steel scale inhibitors are the worst ingredients that you will find in frac fluid for the most part, however, a frac that pumps away 50,000 bbls of water will use about 60 gallons of biocide and about 30 gallons of scale inhibitor; very low concentrations.

Josh Fox is deliberately misleading you.

*there are other systems, too - but due to the low environmental risk and low cost of these systems they are used most often.

[davehalo]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

WARNING, today's fracking is NOT the fracking of the 20th century. Much of the industry cited data refers to old technology.

' … the fact is that high volume, slick water, multi-stage hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling into shale and other tight formations and rock, results in a new type of process with requirements specific only to it. That is the reason why it should not be compared to the “frac’ing” and drilling that was performed during the 20th century, especially in shallow, vertical wells. What science has declared frac’ing safe?

Yes, drilling an 8,000 foot deep hole in the ground, especially in the Appalachian Basin which is riddled with brittle structures and existing faults, is a terrible risk in itself. It creates migration of gas as we have seen multiple times in Bradford County and Susquehanna County alone.

But the fact is that on a 5,000 foot lateral the driller/frac’ers are using a minimum of 5 million gallons of fresh water plus tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals and sand, injected under pressure of up to 15,000 psi per well, whereas, the old wells only used up to 75,000 gallons of fluid to drill and frac, under much less pressure. This is a hugely important difference, both on the surface pad, and underground.

This new, entire, process of drilling and shale hydrofrac’ing, is loosely referred to as hydraulic fracturing, by many. Whether I agree with that description or not, I’m not confused about what people are referring to. We are no longer drilling and frac’ing in the 20th century technology and process, no matter how much the industry would like us to believe.'

tech has changed. chemicals in the fluid...not so much. oversight of the drillers and old wells. well that's gone downhill. ever watch those reality shows about the 'swamp' people who trap gators and see all those old abandoned well heads sticking up out of the water? now imagine the same thing on land... which agency monitors those well heads to ensure the company that abandoned them (mind you after putting in the casing when drilling, and then maybe sealing them) did (1) proper work and (2) ensures they remain intact....

oh wait....the taxpayers get to pay for all of that. call it a win win for the oil-gas industry....AGAIN. and then who pays when those wells deteriorate over time and need fixed...

[evilnewbie]

You know what I found really, really weird about all this talk about natural gas... we have only enough for 100 years... that's it? We are investing trillions of dollars for something that doesn't last that long and isn't as renewable... really? My next question is, who is getting PAID...

[buzzards27]

You a industry insider? Just wondering if this is true confessions....

For the record you wants say that the oil industry did some crazy things in the past with little regard for the consequences to people, land, air or water?

Just asking because if they were willing to bring in product at any cost to the long term effects on the environment in the past WHAT CHANGED?

A few question for you, you sound like an expert.

Tell how often do the pressurized a well only to find a leaker? How often do the find a natural fault that is open to the water table? How often does the cement seals fail and allow the fracking fluid to leak to the surface and/or water table? How common are these man made earthquakes? How often have ground water wells close to production wells been contaminated by methane from the production zone? What is that stuff bubbling out of the Susquahanna River?

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

As an afterthought, that's probably a good thing. The way fracture stimulation was originally performed was to set a plug at the desired depth, prepare a vial of nitroglycerin, drop it down the hole and run like hell. The explosion shattered the formation and created a highly conductive path to the wellbore. This is why frac hands are still sometimes referred to as "shooters".

After that, napalm was used as a gellant in oil-based carrier fluids (really nasty stuff) and there were no controls on the introduction of anaerobes to the formations underground. This is why many plays with a long history of prolific production now produce extremely high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide in concert with oil & natural gas.

Modern frac fluids are usually comprised* of either polyacrylamide for "slickwater", which is about as biologically inert as nylon, or hydrated guar gel (which you can eat). Guar systems are usually cross-linked with borates (sometimes the same boric acid powder that your grandmother used to sprinkle under the baseboards is used) and broken with either a guar enzyme or a simple oxidative breaker. The only problem with having a complex carbohydrate as the base of your frac fluid is that it will turn into food underground for any bacteria that is incidental to the water used as the carrier. To address this, most frac fluid will contain a non-oxidative biocide agent (can't be bleach or you degrade the cross-link). This and steel scale inhibitors are the worst ingredients that you will find in frac fluid for the most part, however, a frac that pumps away 50,000 bbls of water will use about 60 gallons of biocide and about 30 gallons of scale inhibitor; very low concentrations.

Josh Fox is deliberately misleading you.

*there are other systems, too - but due to the low environmental risk and low cost of these systems they are used most often.

[buzzards27]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

No. Cementing is part of the process of drilling a well and will take place regardless of where the well is drilled and whether or not a fracture stimulation will be performed.

So, you're saying they use the same grouting technology for high pressure fracking as, oh let's say, well water grouting? No? Not all cements and cementing techniques the same??? Every gas well today uses the exact same methods?

Of course, the cement job is always part of the job, a failure at the cement seal is, in fact, a failure of the fracking job.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

So, you're saying they use the same grouting technology for high pressure fracking as, oh let's say, well water grouting? No? Not all cements and cementing techniques the same??? Every gas well today uses the exact same methods?

Of course, the cement job is always part of the job, a failure at the cement seal is, in fact, a failure of the fracking job.

I still say no. There is no cementing involved in pumping a frac away. Every well in North America (and probably the world) will be drilled in a very similar fashion and the principal will be the same: bore a large diameter hole down to a depth sufficient to go past the deepest usable ground water, pull the drill pipe out of the hole, run steel casing into the hole, pump a sufficient amount of cement down the casing to fill the annulus between the outside of the casing and open hole, pump a volume of water, brine or mud down the casing sufficient to displace the cement so that you have casing full of water and an annulus full of cement. Shut in the manifold at the surface and wait for the cement to cure. Once cured, drill through the bottom of the "shoe" with a smaller diameter bit and conduct a pressure test to ensure that the groundwater is protected from your maximum anticipated pressure plus an arbitrary safety factor. If the shoe holds, continue drilling. If the shoe does not hold, conduct a bond log and perform a cement squeeze to correct the deficiency and keep working at it until it holds pressure, then continue drilling. Speaking simplistically for brevity, when you reach total depth you pull the drill pipe out of the hole, run casing to depth and cement that into place in the same way. Your drilling phase is complete. Pack the rig, move it to the next job and begin preparations for your completion attempt. If your are doing a Frac, you perforate the productive formation, move a crew onto the location, hook up to the well and proceed with a job. A conventional Frac (which is still probably the most common) involves pumping a volume of unlinked gel (referred to as the pad) down the inner string of pipe, through the perforations and into the formation. When the fluid is under enough pressure to exert enough force on the rock to overcome both it's tensile strength and the least of the principal geologic stresses, the formation fractures and begins to form invaginations that grow in proportion to the volume of fluid pumped. The entire surface area of the fracture is now able to bleed oil and gas into the well bore; it's like the formation was trying the blow through a swizzle stick and now it has a firehouse. If you release the fluid pressure, the fracture will close and you did all of that for nothing. In order to hold it open, sand is mixed with the fluid and packed into the hole, propping the fracture open.

That's an extremely simplistic and non-technical overview, but I think it helps the discussion if we all have a basic understanding of the process. Keep in mind that this is likely the be at least a few thousand feet below the deepest groundwater. If you stand at the foothills in the Rocky Mountains and look up you can get an appreciation for how far the actual injection is from the groundwater.

I have no idea whether or not a Frac could cause an earthquake, but it seems extremely far fetched. It makes a great sound byte and seems to have caught on, but I have a very, very difficult accepting that the fluid volumes and pressures involved would ever result in a significant seismic event.

Anyway, to your last point - if the cement program fails during a Frac that would indicate that the cement program was insufficient as opposed to a problem with the Frac.

I'm burned out. Will check this thread tomorrow.