Drilling advances

	Vol. 231 No. 10
JIM REDDEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

US to world: Do as I say, not as I do

Yogi Berra, the legendary baseball player and widely renowned master of the mangled message, counseled that when you come to a fork in the road, your best bet is to take it. Yogi’s unique version of fuzzy logic could very well describe the US attitude toward shale gas drilling.

To call the relationship of the country’s political class to shale gas perplexing is like saying Mother Teresa could be a rather giving individual. Turn down one fork in the road, and you hear federal and state officials proclaiming that the nation’s gargantuan shale gas reserves are its ticket to a clean and secure energy future. Travel down the other fork, and you see many of those same lawmakers and administrators doing everything they can to make it much more difficult, expensive and time consuming to actually transfer all that clean energy from the reservoir to the burner tip. Some of these folks seem to be under the impression that operators should be able to use some psychic force to will the gas out of the tight sandstones rather than actually drill for it.

There’s little need to rehash the federal and state brouhaha over the hydraulic fracturing technique that, until recently, was used without a second thought for more than 60 years. It’s tempting to attribute the all-of-a-sudden fracing hullabaloo to the fact that some of the shale plays, the Marcellus in particular, are making their way into more heavily populated environs that until now have had little experience coexisting with drilling operations. That may well be true, but many of those same people who complain about frac fluids polluting their drinking water—ignoring concrete scientific evidence that suggests otherwise—have lived very comfortably with their coal-mining neighbors for decades. Aside from the obvious higher carbon output of bituminous coal, anyone who has lived in mining country will tell you that complaints over methane gas in drinking water did not first crop up when the rigs moved in. Believe me, in that part of the country the label King Coal is no misnomer.

Of course, even conventional gas reserves have not escaped the official condemnation. Many of you may remember that, earlier this year, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar vowed to tighten restrictions on drilling within land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management that comprises most of the gas-rich Rockies, arguing that operators have used BLM land as their personal “candy store.” And, as we all know, new drilling permits for deep wells on the Gulf of Mexico shelf have become as rare as a politician who makes campaign promises and sticks by them.

Then, we look down the other direction and we hear the feds telling any country that will listen that shale gas is the universal remedy for what ails the planet. In a classic illustration of “do as I say, not as I do,” the US Department of State in late August hosted a Global Shale Gas Initiative Conference that drew representatives of some 20 countries with considerable shale gas reserves. According to a State Department release, the purpose of the two-day symposium was to discuss “the importance of shale gas as a lower-carbon fuel option.” One could interpret this as saying “we encourage shale gas drilling, but just not in our backyard.”

The rhetoric coming out of the confab, which drew China, India, Poland, Chile, Jordan and South Africa, among others, would suggest that the US is wholeheartedly behind global full-scale development of shale gas reserves. “While there are no forms of energy without challenges, shale gas presents countries with a cleaner alternative to coal and a way in which they can, potentially, create a more secure energy future for themselves,” said David Goldwyn, the State Department coordinator for international energy affairs, who hosted the conference. Notice that he said “they” and “themselves,” rather than “we” and “ourselves.”

Also, let’s not forget that at the end of 2009, US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao launched a US-China Shale Gas Resource Initiative “to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote energy security and create commercial opportunities for US companies.” In a presidential fact sheet dated Nov. 17, 2009, the White House affirmed, “The United States is a leader in shale gas technology and developing shale gas resources in a way that mitigates environmental risks. Bringing this expertise to China will provide economic opportunities for both the US and China, while improving energy security for both countries and combating climate change.”

Now, that’s odd. If we’ve managed to “mitigate environmental risks,” why the upheaval?

To be fair and give credit where credit is due, the federal government is helping fund research projects aimed at enhancing the prospects for shale gas drilling within US borders. In its latest Unconventional Resources Program, the public-private Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, which is funded partially by the US Department of Energy, announced 11 research projects geared exclusively toward shale gas exploration and production. Of those, at least one would seek to take the edge off one of the most contentious issues with shale gas drilling. The University of Texas is spearheading a study on improved drilling and fracturing fluids for shale gas reservoirs with participation from ConocoPhillips, Chevron Energy Technology Co. and M-I Swaco. In another research module that reaches outside the traditional Southern and Eastern US shale gas plays, the Utah Geological Survey is leading a study on resource potential and best practices for developing that state’s emerging Mancos Shale play in the Uinta Basin, with help from the University of Utah and Halliburton.

Determining exactly where the nation stands on the future of shale gas exploration and production is confusing to say the least, but, as we all know, contradictions and doublespeak are very much staples of the political psyche. We can only hope that the day will come when all these critics realize they have been barking up the wrong tree. When that time comes, they can always revert to another profound Yogism: “I didn’t really say everything I said.”