[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Green Business]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:58am EST
BP discovers leak at Alaska oil pipe, no output hit
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - BP has discovered a leak in an oil pipeline from one well at the giant Prudhoe Bay field, the third pipeline leak reported by the oil major over the past month on Alaska's North Slope.
BP said there was no "appreciable" impact to production from the event, which spilled a mixture of oil, produced water and natural gas at Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field.
"This was, by every indication, an extremely short-term event. The line broke, the safety valve immediately shut the well off, it was over," said BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc spokesman Steve Rinehart.
The amount of liquid spilled was unknown, state and BP officials said, adding it came from a 6-inch-diameter pipeline that carries product from a single well. The leak was discovered on Monday during a routine check, state environmental officials said.
Rinehart said the spilled material appeared to have been limited to the area right by the well, landing on top of snow on the gravel pad.
Weld Royal, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, said the spill appeared to have "definitively affected" about 12,000 square feet of gravel pad, along with another 5,000 square feet that had patches of spilled material. Officials were hoping Tuesday to delineate possible impacts to snow-covered tundra, Royal said.
Three weeks ago, a ruptured 18-inch-diameter line at the Lisburne field released about 46,000 gallons of liquids, a mixture of oil and produced water, according to state officials. That rupture, discovered on November 29, is believed to have been caused by pressure that built up when contents of the line froze into long ice plugs. That event remains under investigation, officials said.
BP is preparing to fix the broken pipeline, a plan that would require state approval, Royal said. "BP has given DEC a conceptual plan for replacing the affected part of the pipeline. DEC is reviewing that conceptual plan," Royal said.
Another spill, discovered December 2, was from a pipeline inside a manifold building at a different Prudhoe Bay drill site. That spill released an estimated 7,170 gallons of produced water, according to state environmental officials.
BP is on probation following an Alaska pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever recorded on the North Slope. That spill poured 212,252 gallons of crude oil onto the tundra. The company pleaded guilty to a single criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and paid $20 million in fines and restitution. It was also ordered to improve its pipeline maintenance.
Various agencies are investigating the circumstances of the Lisburne pipeline rupture to see whether there were any violations of BP's probationary terms, said Mary Frances Barnes, BP's federal probation officer.
A result of that probe will probably not be reached quickly because so many agencies are participating, Barnes said Monday. "The more people you have involved, the longer it's going to take," she said.
BP is also the target of pending civil lawsuits filed by both the state and federal governments over the 2006 spill and a second spill that year that resulted in a partial shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay field.
The federal lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in fines for various environmental violations. The state lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for what the state claims was royalty and tax revenue lost during Prudhoe's partial shutdown in 2006.
At the site of the Lisburne spill, which sent oil and produced water spraying over an area of about 8,400 square feet, cleanup is nearly completed, state and BP officials said.
Oil-covered snow has been hauled away and is being melted, with contents separated, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Workers using jackhammers and hand tools have removed contaminated snow and ice in spots inaccessible to machines, Rinehart said.
"What can be done now is almost completely done," he said.
Crews will be at the site in the spring to check on potential damage to tundra and, if necessary, options for rehabilitation, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
(Editing by Christian Wiessner)
[Green Business]
Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:57am EST
FACTBOX: Shale gas stirs energy hopes, environment concerns
(Reuters) - The boom in shale natural gas drilling has raised hopes the United States will be able to rely on the cleaner-burning fuel to meet future energy needs, but concerns about its impact on water quality could slow the industry's ability to tap this bountiful resource.
New York City urged a ban on natural gas drilling in its watersheds on Wednesday.
Some shale gas facts:
* Shale gas is natural gas -- largely methane -- produced and stored in shale formations a mile or more underground in many of the lower 48 U.S. states.
* Together with other "unconventional" natural gas sources (tight sands and coalbed methane), shale gas accounts for 60 percent of technically recoverable U.S. onshore reserves, according to the Department of Energy. At least half of new reserves growth is expected to come from shale gas by 2011. In all, shale reserves are estimated to contain enough gas to meet total U.S. demand for 26 years.
* Estimates of total U.S. natural gas reserves have been rising in recent years. The Energy Information Administration calculated proven reserves at 244 trillion cubic feet, or about 11 years' supply, up from the agency's 2006 estimate of 211 trillion cubic feet.
* A separate estimate from the Potential Gas Committee, an industry group, in June 2009 concluded that the U.S. has 1,836 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas reserves, the highest in the 44-year history of the organization. That represents about 80 years' supply at the current national consumption rate of 23 trillion cubic feet a year. The higher forecast largely reflects a reassessment of shale plays in the Appalachians, the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.
* One trillion cubic feet of gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year or to fuel 12 million natural gas-powered vehicles for a year, according to DOE figures.
* The abundance of shale and other forms of natural gas may allow the U.S. to reduce its dependence on overseas energy sources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas produces about half of the carbon dioxide emitted by coal, and about a third less than oil, and so is seen as a "bridge" fuel between petroleum and renewable fuels such as wind and solar. Natural gas also emits lower levels of other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.
* A recent boom in shale gas development in states including Texas, Wyoming and Pennsylvania has been driven by advances in hydraulic fracturing in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals are forced underground at pressures sufficiently high to open gas-bearing fissures in the shale, releasing the fuel which then flows to the surface.
* Exploitation of shale "plays" has also been aided by horizontal drilling, enabling much wider coverage of shale formations than with traditional vertical drilling, and with less surface disturbance.
* The biggest U.S. shale play is the Marcellus Shale which underlies most of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, along with parts of Ohio and New York state. The Marcellus could contain as much as 489 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Terry Engelder, a Penn State University geoscientist. Its value is enhanced by the high quality of its gas and the fact that it is close to the major northeast market. More than 800 Marcellus wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania since 2005, most of them in the last year as energy companies accelerate development of the field, state regulators say.
(Reporting by Jon Hurdle; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
[Green Business]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:58am EST
BP discovers leak at Alaska oil pipe, no output hit
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - BP has discovered a leak in an oil pipeline from one well at the giant Prudhoe Bay field, the third pipeline leak reported by the oil major over the past month on Alaska's North Slope.
BP said there was no "appreciable" impact to production from the event, which spilled a mixture of oil, produced water and natural gas at Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field.
"This was, by every indication, an extremely short-term event. The line broke, the safety valve immediately shut the well off, it was over," said BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc spokesman Steve Rinehart.
The amount of liquid spilled was unknown, state and BP officials said, adding it came from a 6-inch-diameter pipeline that carries product from a single well. The leak was discovered on Monday during a routine check, state environmental officials said.
Rinehart said the spilled material appeared to have been limited to the area right by the well, landing on top of snow on the gravel pad.
Weld Royal, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, said the spill appeared to have "definitively affected" about 12,000 square feet of gravel pad, along with another 5,000 square feet that had patches of spilled material. Officials were hoping Tuesday to delineate possible impacts to snow-covered tundra, Royal said.
Three weeks ago, a ruptured 18-inch-diameter line at the Lisburne field released about 46,000 gallons of liquids, a mixture of oil and produced water, according to state officials. That rupture, discovered on November 29, is believed to have been caused by pressure that built up when contents of the line froze into long ice plugs. That event remains under investigation, officials said.
BP is preparing to fix the broken pipeline, a plan that would require state approval, Royal said. "BP has given DEC a conceptual plan for replacing the affected part of the pipeline. DEC is reviewing that conceptual plan," Royal said.
Another spill, discovered December 2, was from a pipeline inside a manifold building at a different Prudhoe Bay drill site. That spill released an estimated 7,170 gallons of produced water, according to state environmental officials.
BP is on probation following an Alaska pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever recorded on the North Slope. That spill poured 212,252 gallons of crude oil onto the tundra. The company pleaded guilty to a single criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and paid $20 million in fines and restitution. It was also ordered to improve its pipeline maintenance.
Various agencies are investigating the circumstances of the Lisburne pipeline rupture to see whether there were any violations of BP's probationary terms, said Mary Frances Barnes, BP's federal probation officer.
A result of that probe will probably not be reached quickly because so many agencies are participating, Barnes said Monday. "The more people you have involved, the longer it's going to take," she said.
BP is also the target of pending civil lawsuits filed by both the state and federal governments over the 2006 spill and a second spill that year that resulted in a partial shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay field.
The federal lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in fines for various environmental violations. The state lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for what the state claims was royalty and tax revenue lost during Prudhoe's partial shutdown in 2006.
At the site of the Lisburne spill, which sent oil and produced water spraying over an area of about 8,400 square feet, cleanup is nearly completed, state and BP officials said.
Oil-covered snow has been hauled away and is being melted, with contents separated, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Workers using jackhammers and hand tools have removed contaminated snow and ice in spots inaccessible to machines, Rinehart said.
"What can be done now is almost completely done," he said.
Crews will be at the site in the spring to check on potential damage to tundra and, if necessary, options for rehabilitation, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
(Editing by Christian Wiessner)
[Green Business]
Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:57am EST
FACTBOX: Shale gas stirs energy hopes, environment concerns
(Reuters) - The boom in shale natural gas drilling has raised hopes the United States will be able to rely on the cleaner-burning fuel to meet future energy needs, but concerns about its impact on water quality could slow the industry's ability to tap this bountiful resource.
New York City urged a ban on natural gas drilling in its watersheds on Wednesday.
Some shale gas facts:
* Shale gas is natural gas -- largely methane -- produced and stored in shale formations a mile or more underground in many of the lower 48 U.S. states.
* Together with other "unconventional" natural gas sources (tight sands and coalbed methane), shale gas accounts for 60 percent of technically recoverable U.S. onshore reserves, according to the Department of Energy. At least half of new reserves growth is expected to come from shale gas by 2011. In all, shale reserves are estimated to contain enough gas to meet total U.S. demand for 26 years.
* Estimates of total U.S. natural gas reserves have been rising in recent years. The Energy Information Administration calculated proven reserves at 244 trillion cubic feet, or about 11 years' supply, up from the agency's 2006 estimate of 211 trillion cubic feet.
* A separate estimate from the Potential Gas Committee, an industry group, in June 2009 concluded that the U.S. has 1,836 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas reserves, the highest in the 44-year history of the organization. That represents about 80 years' supply at the current national consumption rate of 23 trillion cubic feet a year. The higher forecast largely reflects a reassessment of shale plays in the Appalachians, the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.
* One trillion cubic feet of gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year or to fuel 12 million natural gas-powered vehicles for a year, according to DOE figures.
* The abundance of shale and other forms of natural gas may allow the U.S. to reduce its dependence on overseas energy sources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas produces about half of the carbon dioxide emitted by coal, and about a third less than oil, and so is seen as a "bridge" fuel between petroleum and renewable fuels such as wind and solar. Natural gas also emits lower levels of other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.
* A recent boom in shale gas development in states including Texas, Wyoming and Pennsylvania has been driven by advances in hydraulic fracturing in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals are forced underground at pressures sufficiently high to open gas-bearing fissures in the shale, releasing the fuel which then flows to the surface.
* Exploitation of shale "plays" has also been aided by horizontal drilling, enabling much wider coverage of shale formations than with traditional vertical drilling, and with less surface disturbance.
* The biggest U.S. shale play is the Marcellus Shale which underlies most of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, along with parts of Ohio and New York state. The Marcellus could contain as much as 489 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Terry Engelder, a Penn State University geoscientist. Its value is enhanced by the high quality of its gas and the fact that it is close to the major northeast market. More than 800 Marcellus wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania since 2005, most of them in the last year as energy companies accelerate development of the field, state regulators say.
(Reporting by Jon Hurdle; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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