Have you seen the film “Gasland”? The picture of a methane flame issuing from a kitchen tap can make people fearful of the exploitation of shale gas in Poland. I saw it, but I skipped the last forty minutes for I was bored stiff. I may see all of it some day, when I am in very good spirits and have more leisure than I know what to do with. This film was made to prove the author’s thesis, but certain matters presented in it can work on people’s imagination. What are the real facts of the case? It is inconceivable that the author of the film, who does not know anything about this business, should, in his travels around the country, discover places where monstrous things have been occurring but have not been addressed by anybody. I’m not saying there were no gas leaks there, but all these cases have certainly been investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency and state institutions. There are reports on all these cases. Each of these situations has been evaluated, but the author neglected to mention this in his film, for this would have been too dull. Obviously, there is a risk, but to my knowledge the spectacular flames bursting out of the tap were not connected with shale gas, but with defective well safety devices. At the initial stage of the U.S. shale gas boom not enough care was taken of what was being drilled through above the shale deposit. In Poland we are in a very comfortable situation because we have very good knowledge of the geological structure. In this country it cannot happen that a company drilling for shale penetrates a coal bed with methane at a depth of 3000 meters, fails to properly secure the borehole and allows gas to leak to the surface. It can be surmised, then, that the gas leaking from taps was not shale gas? Yes, the flames bursting out of the water pipe in Gasland probably came from gas present in coal beds situated higher and not workable for economic reasons. In Poland there is no possibility of running through what is known as a “geological horizon” without insulating it from other strata. With the technology used in this country, if an uncontrolled flow along the length of the borehole occurs, this will be either due to a technical breakdown which could not be predicted despite the detailed research of the geological situation, or – which is more likely – because of a human error. There certainly will be no such occurrences under the normal procedure. Hydraulic fracturing requires huge amounts of water. Won’t the gas mines deplete our water resources? Water can be drawn from water-bearing strata, or from surface waters, or process liquids from other fracturing operations can be used. When fracturing begins, all the necessary water must be at hand. If the drilling company draws its water from water-bearing strata, it must have its own water intake and a water-law permit stating an amount of water they can draw daily. A company which wants to draw more water than its permit allows risks, besides administrative penalties, upsetting the level of water, whereupon they will have no water at all. The technology is being improved to reduce water consumption. Water consumption, while very high indeed, is much lower than by coal mines, for instance. The amount of water required for multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of a single borehole is way below the daily consumption by a city of the size of Warsaw. Since we can supply this amount of water for a single city without detriment to our water resources, we will cope with fracturing too. The whole point is that those who issue the water permits and take decisions on liquid process waste management should be aware of the risks and well-versed in the procedure. On how many sites in Poland is exploration for shale gas underway? To date over 100 concessions have been issued. Work proceeds on all concession blocks, only it does not begin with drilling; it begins with researching archives. This is followed by geophysical research. Once this is completed, the location is identified, an appraisal well is drilled and the testing commences. In Poland more than a dozen wells have been drilled, of which on five fracturing and gas tests have been made. Is gas there? The TV showed several flares: at Łebień, Lubocin, Lewino. No company announces how much gas it has and how fast it is flowing. For the time being, they are appraising what they have struck. Later, they will have to process the findings, make computations and then they will establish whether the results make further work economically viable. 

 

In the case of shale gas, we are being shown the frightening prospect of a much larger number of wells than in the case of conventional deposits. At this point nobody is worried by wells. Everybody is apprehensive about fracturing, which is perceived as the main threat. The exploitation of a well will go on for years. At the outset the gas flow will be stronger; later, for the next 20-30 years, it will be very slow. Such a hole is sealed and connected to the network. I doubt whether anybody will venture an assessment of a well’s output over a given time. The extraction of conventional natural gas can be compared to punching a hole in a pressure cooker. As long as such conditions exist, the fuel is extracted. The end result is that in the case of conventional deposits gas can flow out without any stimulation and the life of a well depends on the size of the “gas trap” (that is, of a reservoir in which gas is accumulated) and on the pressure in the deposit. With shale gas, more well bores are needed because this gas occurs not in gas traps but, potentially, in deposits. The opening of a deposit is limited only to the fracturing zone. At the present state of technology, this means an area within the radius of several tens of meters from the well bore. It follows that to extract gas from a larger section of the deposit more wells need to be drilled. How is it possible for the pipe to turn underground? It does not turn all that fast; this takes several hundred meters and, besides, you do not drill with a pipe, you do it with drills. These are special directional drills controlled from the ground and it is not at all times that the right direction is hit. Often after tens or several hundred meters it transpires that the opening is turning in the wrong direction. Then it must be sealed, the vertical direction is resumed and another try is made. For the observer this is better than a film because, first, this is real and, second, it is fascinating. American experts have estimated our reserves at 5.3 billion cu.m. When are we going to know how much gas there is and whether this is not yet another bubble, a gas bubble this time? The larger part of the area identified as potentially gas-bearing has been allocated and exploration concessions have been issued. At present not a single extraction concession has been issued. As a geological service working with our U.S. counterpart we have been developing, since last year, national estimates. This is not simple, though. Different research methods yield different results in the U.S. and here. This is, simply, because these data are of a different nature. The material had to be standardized first, and this is already done. The Ministry of the Environment requested the [drilling] companies to share their data collected for their own needs, for no other purpose than reserve assessment. Probably early next year we’ll have something to say on this subject. The inhabitants of localities where exploration for shale gas goes on do not complain. On the contrary, they see this as an opportunity for their region. From the perspective of an average citizen the [size of] resources is not so relevant. It is more important that the extraction of gas should create jobs and be safe. It is a good thing that public opinion is focused on these aspects. Shale gas does not engender a risk greater than those we have known, but because it is new it could transpire that we have overlooked some things. At present the investors are careful of their image and they make sure that nothing unwelcome happens: that their trucks do not drive too fast, that there is no spillage from the well. Yet, so far, there are only single wells. Once this business has become a real industry, procedures will need to be developed and the staff of regulatory authorities prepared properly for their tasks. They will be issuing decisions on well location, environmental permits and waste management programs. In fact, only they can ensure our safety. When there was just one car in Poland, nobody fell under it. Now that millions of cars are on the roads, several thousand people get killed every year. When we start extracting gas on a mass scale, it is always possible for someone to overlook something – and this is what we must take precautions against. There is still time, it is still several years before mass-scale extraction begins. We must develop procedures to avoid dealing with things on a case-by-case basis and prevent us from being caught unawares if something happens. What do we owe our shale gas to? Shale rocks are sedimentary rocks which developed mostly in very deep seas from very fine material, mostly organic. During millions of years this material underwent transformations. It emerged from the sea to the surface, was overlaid by other formations, it sank deep in the earth. It was subjected to monstrous pressure and high temperature. Being a biological material, it contained a lot of organic substances which under the impact of bacteria and temperature, particularly the latter, first turned into a liquid and, then, into a gaseous form. The gas contained in shale rocks is exactly the same as conventional natural gas. The difference is that the latter had been released earlier and collected in formations with better permeability. 

 

 

 

Source: Tygodnik Rolniczy, 2011-12-09, p. 1, by Paweł Kurczycki