First oil

Ever so quietly, a significant milestone for the UK’s E&P industry has been reached. We refer to the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Safety (BEIS) giving consent to shale gas developer Cuadrilla Resources, to become the first operator in Britain to frac an onshore, horizontal exploration well. Hydraulic fracturing consent was introduced into the government’s processes in 2015.

The BEIS gave its approval on July 24 for Cuadrilla to frac the first shale gas well at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire, in northwestern England. “I have carefully considered Cuadrilla’s application, and I am content that hydraulic fracturing consent should be granted in this instance,” said Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry in a statement. The company is now preparing to apply for consent to frac its second well at that site.

Cuadrilla was thrilled. “We are very pleased to be the first operator in the UK to have been awarded final consent to hydraulically fracture the UK’s first onshore horizontal shale exploration well,” said Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan. He noted that “it is also a win for Lancashire, which has already benefitted directly from over £10 million of investment, as a result of our exploration works…...”

Cuadrilla completed the first well during April in the Lower Bowland shale at a 2,300-m depth, with an 800-m lateral. The second well was completed last month through the Upper Bowland, to about 2,100 m with a 750-m lateral.

URTeC was red-hot. Congratulations to URTeC and its exhibition for a very successful event in Houston, while achieving greatly increased attendance. At the end of the second day, attendance was up to 5,528, almost double the 2017 number in Austin. In fact, attendance at technical sessions and panels was so strong, that many had standing room only, with people lining the walls and falling out the doorways. Show officials scurried to switch some sessions to rooms with more capacity.

But this is a good problem to have, and clear evidence of two things. One, the U.S. upstream industry, particularly the onshore shale sector, is definitely on the mend, and many personnel are hungry for more information and technology to work with. And two, the content of the sessions was high-quality, as has been the case every year for URTeC. The show will return to Denver in 2019.

Now, we’ve seen everything, A long-time industry friend sent me an email last month with a link, saying, “you won’t believe this.” He was right. In the July 23 edition of The Daily Caller, was a story entitled, “Study links fracking to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).” Extremists have blamed fracing for a lot of things, but this was really in left field.

It seems that researchers at the Yale Public School of Health, with obvious time on their hands, believed that increased fracing in Ohio might be generating higher rates of STDs. Indeed, Yale researchers now claim to have found that cases of two specific STDs increased about 20% in nine Ohio counties with high shale development. Lead study author Nicole Deziel contends that out-of-state workers are frequently brought in because of specialized skills (fracing, in this case). She says they are mostly single, straight men, who bring along “masculinized social norms,” as they work at well sites in rural areas.

Accordingly, she contends that these men are having more casual sex with the locals, thus raising the STD rate. Various medical experts have serious problems with this study, pointing out that STD rates were rising in Ohio before fracing was introduced to the state. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the shale gas industry directly, but it does have to do with population growth,” said Dr. Charlotte Gaydos, an STD expert at Johns Hopkins University, in a statement quoted by the Columbus Dispatch. “It makes sense, anytime there’s an activity in the area, which increases the influx of the migration of a population, that it might be associated.” 

About the Authors

Kurt Abraham

World Oil

Kurt Abraham kurt.abraham@worldoil.com