At The Discretion Of The Days

Shale Gas - Thoughts of a geologist

par Marc Durand, docteur-ingénieur en géologie appliquée.

Ce qui est la raison de la précipitation actuelle de l'industrie pétrolière rushing on shale gas in Quebec is the virtual absence of appropriate regulation in this type of operation. The industry is currently street where they have the fewest constraints. Quebec had sometimes had this image "banana republic" for the mining industry. The gas industry has been able to maneuver well: it has poached some big names well placed in government or ex-directors of Crown corporations. The good cronyism with the government, including hiring "former" is a good maneuver to secure inputs for properly handling politicians remained in place, which in fact are not very competent and knowledgeable about this geological question. We'll drill here, because little has been put in place to regulate. Elsewhere in other U.S. states (NY, Pa., for example) the regulations are increasingly restrictive, and the industry knows it must act quickly here too.

The gas is still very abundant on earth and there are many other sources as shale gas. Prices are currently low for natural gas. The industry still sees a profit in the shale with the possible fracturing technique, but as and when the rules will be set up, profitability may be impaired. This industry is no guarantee no way that all these wells, all these massive shale hydrofracture will simply not abandoned, if extraction continues to be competitive with other gas sources. Impacts on groundwater movement will not stop it either. There is simply no technical solution to deliver the rock in the condition it was before. The deep groundwater is very saline, up to ten times that of seawater, they are confined in the wild by the many layers of very low permeability in the superimposition of geological strata. Drilling and hydraulic fracturing increases by several orders of magnitude permeability of massive, it is in hydraulic communication permeable zones previously isolated. The formation of Utica in the Lowlands, is absolutely not in reality as shown in simplistic presentations from industry: they describe their operations as drilling in an even layer in depth at 2000m in 1000 or aquifers. Two visions biased because: 1) communications are possible with the lower aquifers down to a few hundreds of meters below the surface, 2) Utica is not uniform and monolithic as the gas industry presented at the meetings with the public.

Other major confusion presented by the oil industry: it ignores the amount of contaminant releases minerals that the process generates. In the video of the show "Discovery" of 14 November 2010, the geologist Marianne Molgat Coy Talisman Calgary takes an affirmation of his Co. to the effect that the water found in wells are almost not contaminated, "less saline than the ocean ". Here there is great confusion, which is accidentally or intentionally I do not know, between the actual salinity of deep water salinity and is measured either in the well water, or in the back waters of fracturing. We can talk about the actual salinity of groundwater in the Utica, like any other geological formation, by obtaining downhole samples undiluted by any technique or the other, well water are a mixture two waters: 1-water injected by the technical and 2-natural waters (scarce) existing in nature. Worse, the salinity of reflux during and after the injection of huge volumes for hydrofracturing diluted so real extreme salinity. Analyses of waters of reflux not constitute any data used to talk about water salinity or mineralization of Utica. I found very few reliable measurements of the actual salinity of deep waters in the Lowlands of the St. Lawrence. Analysis exists for other training to these great depths and are, as expected, very few mobile and highly mineralized. Analyses of deep natural and undiluted by outside input exist: ex. Junex has found so salty that it can sell them as replacement of deicing salt in the Department of Transport! The firm's well publicized on its website: "salinity varies 200g / l 360g / l, that is, for example, a degree of salinity from 10 to 12 times that of sea water "(source: http://www.junex.ca/fr/ storage / solnat.php). Quebec grants permits for this water, diluted over a hundred times that used in the injection, is treated in small treatment plants, not at all designed for this type of release minerals . Government discourse is heavily "contaminated" by the industry propaganda. In fact, currently, almost all data supplied from the gas industry, and departments are poorly equipped to do independent studies. The directive seems to come from above is above all economic development.

In Lowlands St. Lawrence shale formations and shale (Utica, Lorraine) are cut by numerous faults and fractures which we know that probably a very small percentage mapped. These faults cut across all strata, the Utica and what covers it up to the surface. They also communicate with aquifers which are located wells. Traffic, trade is extremely slow and low flows in natural conditions massif, with everything changes, during and after the extraction process gas. As suggested by the expert Win McIntyre, an engineer from upstate New York, interviewed in the story of the Discovery Issue, "no gas extraction should be done in areas where aquifers exist. For Quebec, it means no extraction in the Lowlands St. Lawrence, which are fully occupied by a rural settlement which depends on water resources. It was not even in Quebec completed a mapping these aquifers, they may sell off cheaply. The industry, and worse, draft government regulations, not discuss now and do as precautions are taken during drilling operations. Nothing in this problem only applies to what may occur after the abandonment of wells in the long term.

The shale or schist Utica covers older formations, limestone and sandstone, which are permeable. The few studies of water in these deeper layers show very high salinities, well above that of seawater in the natural conditions of the agricultural plain south of St. Lawrence, these deep waters are currently well contained by layers of shale and shale that covers them. The project to extract gas from shale in the plains of St. Lawrence involves irreversibly fracturing the outermost layer of impermeable bedrock on nearly 10,000 km2 to extract the trapped gas. This layer has a thickness ranging between 90 and 300m, the gas is present in the low porosity of about 3%. The fracturing is a technique that extreme divide up an impermeable layer over much of the plain inhabited between Montreal and Quebec City.

This technique is applied only recently to the massive shale and is intended to break the enormous volumes and does recover, about 20% of the gas content. When the flow of gas wells is no longer considered viable, it will still be 80% of gas in place. What will it circulations of water and the gas in the massive newly fractured during the decades that followed, when gas pharmacies have packed up and cashed in their profits? In addition to 10000km2 (see figure above), gas and water depths will circulate in a massive shale and shale became thousands of times more permeable. Contaminants and gases can migrate thousands of times more easily than before. They will certainly reach the groundwater surface by the numerous fractures and faults and naturally occurring probably by the thousands of gas wells that are never closed as well as the rock that was there before.

Over the years, casing will corrode. There is also the question of long-term behavior of the grout set up in wells. They are tested during the development drilling, because it is quite simply indispensable for the production, they often show deficiencies in a large proportion of boreholes (one in two). Ensures the implementation of the grout is perfect and leaves no space between the casing and the rock on 1, 2 or even 3 km of drilling is already an achievement at work, which is rarely reached. How to behave when plugging the end of production and abandonment of wells? The grout degrade in the presence of highly saline waters, as is the case in the deep layers of the Ordovician of Quebec. Of the 20,000 holes that connect the surface with the new permeable layer, which will rename "Utica transformed, there will be year after year are well deteriorate, new water connections will appear and multiply, beginning with wells that have had the most gaps and flaws clogging. Our descendants will curse and face a very complex task to address each of these new connections. How these problems will be managed and what will it cost? I do not have the expertise of an economist, risk assessor, but I think even the most optimistic estimates, the costs far exceed the total sum of the current value of the gas. To get an idea of what costs the battle of lawyers, in charge of studies, measures mitigatoires one case, I will appended to this text where the Mercier, which dates from 1968-72 and still forty who wait years later the solution.

How is it that some can see now a possible bonanza? How is it that the industry that only removes the 20% easiest to extract in the gas reserve could make it profitable? If we now asked the industry to create a reserve fund to repair and compensate for all costs actually present and especially future, the billions required would be much higher than all the profits that sparkle now. There is no economically feasible way to deliver the massive shale in its original condition. Once we broke in and opened cracks were injected sand, it is impossible to recover before the Utica also waterproof. Profitability there simply because the government has indicated a desire to allow the industry to break the trillion m3 of rock, recover the gas that goes out in the early years (only about 20% of resources) and leave it all there like that (methane still in place, the rock made thousands of times more permeable, etc.). and go. Why? because it goes deep, it is not visible from the surface. Nevertheless, it modifies irreversibly bedrock. In one or two generations, we may have found a much better technique to properly exploit this wealth will be found Perhaps unfortunately, that in the plain of St. Lawrence, the "massacre" made from 2011 to 2020 by the fracturing which will "skim" 20% of gas, will greatly complicate or even prevent the new technique.

Another cause of the rush current in Quebec, it costs to buy ridiculous Quebec exploration rights for gas. The cost of exploration permits in the mining industry is traditionally low per hectare, as this is a policy that applies to conventional mining exploration. To find a single deposit of gold or classic copper for example, we must explore thousands of acres. The politics of mining rights is to promote mining development. When a deposit is finally found, which contains per hectare is a great value, but Coy exploration has also paid for the mineral rights to thousands of others that they remain sterile. Applied to the operation of the Utica shale gas, is an aberration! The rights of exploration and extraction of gas by fracturing practically the entire volume of rock in a formation of shale that stretches from Vermont to Montmagny, it should not be sold with a policy designed to another person when No one predicted such a case. The gas industry has quickly grasped the ignorance of our politicians, officials and the maladjustment of our rules mining, rushing for a low cost but ridiculous on the mineral rights. This is especially the creams that 20% of the resource they can now consider it to be profitable. Otherwise, with real rules and the obligation to create a background for the billions of damage in one or two generations, the profitability of the process would fly away.

For the "cons" more apparent on the surface, the industry uses words who want reassuring and has hired some "local" to transmit. But we simply can not trust the discourse of the petroleum industry. Always and everywhere the industry uses an approach that would rather take the risk of paying for damages after the fact, it's much cheaper as well, because there are four steps before you get to be obliged to pay:

1) It is necessary that the damage is found: in geology, it goes further in depth the possibilities of direct observation. It takes sophisticated detection tools that they alone possess the most often;

2) The worst damage established in the long term the industry will have long since packed up before it begins to appear and they can therefore legally make a direct link between the two;

3) Even if the immediate damage (eg gas leak almost simultaneously with the operations), there are many opportunities for industry to deny the causal link, that's what they are currently United States. In reality, proof beyond a reasonable doubt can cost as much to establish that the price of a well and it is individuals who are injured, they do no match for the size and expertise of pharmacies.

4) Finally, for those few cases where the public image of the case begins to represent a cost, then the industry agrees to indemnify and repair. But in the end, with all the previous steps, the industry pays ten or a hundred times cheaper, because 99% of cases beyond one of the three previous steps.

Absolute measures to avoid all risks simply do not exist. Measures to halve the risk cost billions to implement consistently. Sometimes states eventually impose, profitability fell sharply; industry can go elsewhere where the rules are less restrictive, or accept them if there is no alternative. But even accepting in principle the rules, there is always the possibly non-compliance with rules, that is to say the offenses. There is also a stepwise process before paying and we return to 1, 2, 3 listed above. The speech of the oil industry for its approach to the shale gas is no more clear than with oil pollution. Moreover, have you ever thought that the explanations put forward to justify same industry the spontaneous increase in oil prices to approach some long leave on vacation?

You can not trust the current government policy on the issue of shale gas, because it has clearly been courted very buddy buddy with the industry. Blinded by the economic outlook, he did not see that the economic benefits in the short term can never compensate for the enormous environmental costs in future generations.

The gas in the Utica shale has been around for 400 million years And can wait another few decades. Let the future generations, so she can better absorb the debts that they bequeath. In 30 or 50 years there will surely be a more efficient process than the current technique, which recovers only 20% while 100% of irreversible damage. For me, it's not only not in shale gas and yes to the moratorium and is a non-final in fracturing, not the current technique in populated areas.

What about exploration permits already granted? Nothing special I think: they are paid license cheap pharmacies that still can be used to explore the real deposits of oil or gas. A real field is a place where natural fractures in fairly good concentration contain recoverable gas in a conventional manner. There is little chance that it finds more than a few wells in all the Lowlands, but it is consistent with the ridiculously low price of licenses they have purchased. I think it will suffice to only legislate to ban outright the fracturing and the massacre in depth of 10 000km2 of territory by 10 to 20 000 wells - a pure aberration!

Further comments on the management of risk:
The first case of groundwater pollution by the oil industry in Mercier took place in 1968, the Quebec government took four years to rescind the permit it had granted in ignorance of the real hydrogeological risks. This permit has cost us $ 150 since 1972 collectively tens of millions. Forty years later, this problem now managed by the Ministry of the Environment, still has no solution and the taxpayers have not finished paying millions each year for this single case. Technical solutions have been proposed excavation in 1980, but none has been applied because the estimated cost, about $ 40M at the time, then $ 80M in 1994 by the BAPE. It could reach a much higher cost in 2011. The court actions to force the oil industry to get involved in a solution have all failed miserably. The industry has always triumphed in the litigation because it has consistently used the opportunity to appear before the court, any lingering doubts in the scientific concepts that govern the flow of groundwater. And the problem Mercier is between 2 m and 30 m deep, and forty years later, we discuss yet the final technical solution. Imagine when we have to deal with problems at the bottom of wells 1000 m deep! And the 20,000 wells, there will be problems: ten, twenty or a hundred cases Mercier, will cost us billions to manage. For Mercier, the first major case that the Ministry of Environment has had to manage the studies followed by prosecution, followed by new studies, etc.. dragged on for four decades. None of the attempts to deal with the oil industry has resulted in a final and as the proceedings against the oil industry has been lost in the courts, it was shown that the law is quite inappropriate to such matters geological.

In hydraulic fracturing, while not controlling, despite contrary claims by the industry are spread far fractures. Once these abandoned wells and fields of newly fractured rock areas are bedrock that are absolutely waterproof, as they were before. It is an irreversible modification of the bedrock.

In its natural state, the gas is trapped in the pores shale, permeability of the rock has a very low value and also the gradient (~ 0.001). Fracturing increases by several orders of magnitude the value of k and injection pressures to fracture the rock are extreme, five to ten times the hydrostatic pressure gradient, so i reaches values a thousand times that of natural conditions with abrupt changes in time. The result is the product of these two parameters, which are each increased thousands of times: v = kx i. This result expresses the speed of movement with the new conditions of fluid migration. Speed almost zero before, so we go to circulation that are no longer all negligible. In almost all hydrofracture in bedrock associated Gas, surely we will connect the hydraulic area of operation with non-fracture zones mapped in connection with surface slicks. For each km2 of territory, the probability of overlap such hazards can be estimated (1%, 5%?). As you attack all 10 000km2 of Utica, a statistic that is more abstract. For each drill, this may be a statistical possibility, but as we tackle the entire volume, the question of whether there will be incidents do not arise in statistical terms, it actually becomes a certainty. It remains to estimate the number of problems for the 10 000 wells (10, 50, 100, 200?).

In the best case, the layers are going to be affected in ten, twenty or a hundred years. In the worst case, in a few weeks that it manifests itself. But it will happen in a high percentage of cases, if one includes the long term. The current profitability of this operation is the wind, because if you do a cost analysis of insurance industry should pay for each well, the permit should not be ridiculously so low ($ 100 in 2010!) but tens of millions of dollars. No industry will drill wells at this price, because the benefit disappears.

Source
Marc Durand, doct-ing in geology
Retired Professor (Dept. Earth Sciences, UQAM)
Shefford, December 2010

And let's not forget that in France, this new danger threatens us everywhere: just follow the daily diary of Collective-Cevennes Piedmont to be convinced ...

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