British hydrocarbon provinces. Source: DECC. Click to enlarge

After an 18-month hiatus, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has given the green light to resume shale gas exploratory ‘fracking’. Tim Probert explores the next steps towards the UK’s ambition to create a shale gas revolution. This article was first published in the February 2013 issue of Materials World.

There has been no end of hyperbole about shale gas in the UK over the past two years. But for all the wildly varying talk about the potential riches or environmental damage from shale gas, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been on ice since Lichfield-based Cuadrilla Resources was found to have caused two relatively large earth tremors in Lancashire of 1.5 and 2.3 magnitude in April and May 2011 respectively.

After an 18-month hiatus, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) finally gave the green light to resume exploratory fracking last December. Given the large gas-in-place resource estimates in UK shale basins and the potential for Her Majesty’s Treasury to accrue many billions of pounds in tax revenue the decision was never really in doubt.

Regulations

DECC has laid down some tough new regulations for exploration, primarily aimed at mitigating induced seismicity. Analysis carried out by Cuadrilla, and confirmed by DECC, concluded the cause of the tremors was the movement of the frack fluid into and along a fault which was already under stress. The additional pressure of the fluid caused the fault to move, resulting in the tremors.

DECC says many other faults in the Lancashire area have similarly unrelieved stresses, and could in a similar scenario likewise resulting in tremors. Shale gas drillers must, therefore, take a more cautious approach to the duration and volumes of fluid used. Fracking will also be subject to a “traffic-light” regime, so that operations can be quickly paused and data reviewed if an unusual level of seismic activity is observed.

DECC took a dim view of Cuadrilla’s response to the tremors, saying the company “demonstrated some weaknesses in its management of environmental risks”. In other words, the drilling team did not tell the Cuadrilla board about the incidents quite as swiftly as it should have done.

So DECC has imposed a strict regime for Cuadrilla’s exploration programme in Lancashire, setting the remedial action level for the traffic light system will be set at magnitude 0.5. This is seen as a conservative level as it far below a perceptible surface event, although larger than the expected level generated by fracking.

In order to simplify and streamline the regulatory process and to provide single point of contact for investors, DECC will create the Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil, working with the Department of the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and other government departments.

Regulation of activities associated with shale gas exploration, such as groundwater protection and well integrity, will remain the relevant responsibilities of the Environment Agency and the HSE. Meanwhile, HM Treasury will announce a targeted tax regime for the shale gas industry at Budget 2013 on 20 March.

Cuadrilla activities to date

So far Cuadrilla has drilled three shale gas wells in Lancashire and has completed a 3D seismic survey of over 100 square kilometres of its 1,200 square kilometres license area known as PEDL165 in West Lancashire. As is well known, Cuadrilla has announced an extremely large gas-in-place resource estimate for PEDL165: 200 trillion cubic feet, equal to more than 60 years of supply.

Cuadrilla is understandably keen to establish gas flowback rates and recoverability factors as soon as possible. The company says it expects to restart fracking in the first half of 2013 upon receiving planning approval from Lancashire County Council.

If all goes to plan then Cuadrilla will seek to frack at least three wells in the initial exploratory stage. While the Preese Hall site in Wheeton near Blackpool has been plugged to avoid a repeat of the unfortunate earth tremors incidents in 2011, Cuadrilla will conduct intensive fracking at the Anna’s Road site in Westby near Lytham St. Annes, the Grange Hill site in Singleton near Poulton-le-Fylde and the Becconsall site in Banks near Southport.

The Anna’s Road site is seen as a crucial well for Cuadrilla. Starting from a vertical well, at over a mile beneath the surface, an extension will gradually ‘arc’ into a horizontal path. The well will be 8.5 inches in diameter and the 12-stage horizontal frack will extend 1,400 metres from the site to the west.

From this and Cuadrilla’s other exploratory wells, the company intends to produce gas, to be burned in an on-site generator to produce electricity, for one year to determine how much gas can be produced and how fast gas production declines.  At this point, Cuadrilla would approach DECC, if flow rates are sufficiently promising, notifying its intention to proceed to production stage.

As a pre-cursor to full-blown production, Cuadrilla is expected to drill approximately 20 wells from single-site ‘pads’, from which operators can move a drilling rig in order to drill several wells from the same site without the disruption of dismantling and re-erecting the rig each time. These wells, roughly two miles vertically and three miles horizontally, would be drilled over a larger area across Cuadrilla’s PEDL165 license area.

Again, these wells would be operated for a year to ascertain flow rate and recoverability.  At this stage, end-2014 or 2015, Cuadrilla would enter full-blown production. This would entail the development of a further 800-1,200 wells from around 100-120 pads spread over a 50 square miles area between Cleavleys to the north of Blackpool, Kirkham towards Preston and Lytham St Annes.

Exploring and developing shale gas plays will not come cheaply. Cuadrilla says well drilling costs are £20,000 per half-day, with an exploration well costing £10.5 million each, falling to £9 million in commercial extraction. At the time of writing, Cuadrilla was reportedly in negotiations with Centrica (owners of British Gas), ExxonMobil, BP and Shell to sell a stake in their shale gas assets.

Cuadrilla not the only show in town

UK shale gas exploration does not start and finish with Cuadrilla Resources. UK firm IGas Energy says test results indicate more than 9 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in place at its sites in Ince Marshes near Chester and Doe Green in Warrington and is evaluating possible drilling.

Eden Energy is a 50% partner of Bridgend-based Coastal Oil and Gas Limited with exploration licenses across South Wales from Cowbridge to Pontypridd, Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea. Eden Energy reports its seven licences in South Wales have gas-in-place resources of 34 trillion cubic feet.

In Scotland, Dart Energy intends to develop its Airth sites, estimated to contain 0.7 trillion cubic feet, near Stirling in Clackmannanshire. Dart Energy also holds several exploratory licenses for the Cheshire Basin and Gainsborough Trough in northwest England. Several more companies are expected to prospect for shale gas when DECC finally completes its 14^th licensing round for onshore oil and gas exploration.

Dart Energy’s acreage. Click to enlarge

Developing shale gas plays

In general, UK shale basins tend to be very different from the United States, they are much smaller and the geology is more complicated. Many of the US basins are intra-cratonic, which tends to form in geologically stable regions with relatively small amounts of faulting and deformation of the Earth’s crust.

By contrast, as in the geological past the UK was situated close to the boundary of several tectonic plates, many of the UK shale basins have undergone much more deformation. That means buried faults are contained within the basins that cut through and offset the shale deposits.

The good news is that the sequences of shale are very thick, and that is undoubtedly beneficial in a country like the UK with a high population density sensitive to developments. Yet the thickness of the shale could be a doubled-edged sword. The gas ‘pay zone’ is much deeper than the United States shale plays and therefore it may be more dispersed and more difficult to extract.

What is certain is that there will be ‘good’ shales and ‘bad’ shales with a huge amount of variability within them, as Dr. Nick Riley, the British Geological Survey’s (BGS) Team Leader for Unconventional Gas explains. “There’s a lot of single depositional tectonics going on,” he says.

“So not only do you have over-printing of faults between the late-Carboniferous and post-Carboniferous periods, you’ve got active faulting during the Carboniferous period and that is controlling a lot of the quality of the shale, the thickness of the shale. Plus at certain times of the Carboniferous period the sea level goes up and down as polar ice caps waxed and waned, which changes the organic nature of the shale.”

As yet there is no exploration data in the public domain appraising whether the ‘good’ shales have ‘sweetspots’ of shale gas all the way through. Geologists can, however, conduct burial history analysis to determine how quickly and steeply sediments were buried at the time they were originally deposited in order to make pressure estimates ahead of drilling any wells.

Dr Jonny Imber, a Durham Energy Institute structural geologist, says brittle layers of rock are preferable for extracting hydrocarbons from shale. “The hydraulic fractures will propagate more easily, and will remain open easily, within very brittle layers,” he says. “They tend to be layers which contain quartz and calcites.”

Shale gas companies look at the stratigraphy by extracting cores of rock to analyse the layers. “But the well is like putting a pinprick in a very large cushion, you don’t know what’s going on laterally. The key challenge is to try and work out how the geology varies as you move around the compass positions away from the well.

“Shale gas production often relies on natural fracture systems within the shales and a well is essentially a one-dimensional sample through a three-dimensional rock volume. It can be difficult to understand the geometry of the natural fractures just by looking at a single well.

“They can use seismic reflection data to produce a seismic survey over an area of interest, but the resolution of the seismic data is probably only around 30 metres vertically. It will give you a broad overview of the structure and the different layers but it won’t to get you anywhere near enough information,” adds Imber.

Even when ‘sweetspots’ are located, extracting hydrocarbons from shale is not straightforward, says the BGS’s Riley. “In places producing shale gas they can drill wells very close to each other in the same layer where one well will flow and the other will not. Also, one horizontal leg may not flow and they don’t know why. There is still a lot to learn.”

In the end, it will be case of suck it and see. Graham Tiley, Shell’s general manager for an unconventional venture in Ukraine, expects disappointments. “That is why it is called exploration,” he says. “We drilled three shale gas wells in southern Sweden and did not find the gas content in the shale and exited that project.

“At the end of the day, if you have drilled your 1,000 wells, the question is does the average recovery per well exceed your economic threshold. Some wells will come in lower. A few wells will hopefully come in much higher. But the absolute critical factor is your average recovery per well.”

Thickness and depth of UK shale plays. Source: Royal Society, ‘Shale Gas Extraction in the UK – A Review of Hydraulic Fracturing’, June 2012. Click to enlarge

Gaining public confidence in shale gas

Almost all energy developments attract controversy but shale gas has proven particularly hyperbolic. Much of the screeching from opponents to shale gas is overblown, yet there is no doubt that poorly-constructed wells could result in extensive groundwater pollution as has occurred in the United States.

In its report, ‘Shale gas extraction in the UK: A review of hydraulic fracturing’, the Royal Society said well integrity is the highest priority to practice safe fracking. Dougal Goodman, Chief Executive of The Foundation for Science and Technology and member of the Royal Society’s shale gas extraction working group, says monitoring should be carried out before, during and after shale gas operations to detect methane and other contaminants in groundwater and potential leakages of methane and other gases into the atmosphere.

“In the US there have been casing failures and with a very large number of wells drilled this is perhaps to be expected,” he says. “ In the UK the well design has to be reviewed by a third-party independent examiner, but we recommend that this independent examiner should also make on-site visits rather than merely review the paperwork for the design, drilling and completion stages.”

The HSE appears to have heeded the Royal Society’s advice. Steve Walker, Head of HSE’s Offshore Division says it will engage with the onshore drilling industry in order to gain public trust in shale gas. “One of the issues raised by the Royal Society was not so much concern about well integrity but public confidence in well integrity.

“The industry is also concerned about ‘cowboy frackers’ cutting corners to cut costs. So the industry is saying it will go above statutory requirements. [Shale gas developers] say ‘We not need to the well examiner to do ‘x’ but we will make sure they do it in order to get that extra public assurance’”.

Cuadrilla operates an ‘open house’ policy on its activities, says Chief Operating Officer Eric Vaughan. “We have given hundreds of residents, MPs and councillors tours of our fracking sites and we have a full-time visitor cabin when we are drilling so people can come and see what we do,” he says.

Yet the company has not covered itself in glory in recent years. Aside from the earth tremors, hugely damaging in a public relations sense, Cuadrilla was forced to abandon last November a borehole at the Anna’s Road site after a ‘packer’ – testing equipment used to investigate a cement failure – was lost and became jammed 2000 feet below the surface.

Incidents such as these do nothing to assuage fears that shale gas is not safe. “There is no love for shale gas in the UK”, says Simon Whitehead, managing director of energy PR firm Hill and Knowlton. “There needs to be an industry-wide, offensive campaign with a fresh new narrative giving more of a brand feel to shale gas developments. Fracking needs a re-brand, perhaps with a ‘kitemark’ for safe developers.”

Shale gas drilling rig. Source: Cuadrilla Resources

Developing community benefits from shale gas

Yet this may still not be enough to ensure shale gas operations go ahead. The industry recognizes that it may be rational for communities to oppose developments because they could come in for all the downside of fracking – road traffic, noise and potential groundwater pollution – without any of the upside.

Ultimately the social licence to operate resides within the communities and no amount of exploration licenses guarantee access to hydrocarbons without it. Public acceptance may require some tangible benefits and shale gas companies are talking with local and national government to explore ways to transfer some of the revenues back to the communities affected by drilling activities.

In Poland, Hutton Energy has set up a community advisory board comprised of key stakeholders: local residents, the local mayor, the landowner, company representatives and, in some cases, the local priest. Another developer in Poland, San Leon, even goes as far as working with priests to spread the good word about shale gas, attending Sunday worship and making donations towards church maintenance.

A similar approach may work in the UK, says Andrew Austin, CEO of IGas Energy, which operates 30 oil and gas fields with production in the East Midland and the Weald. “Around 10% of our operational expenditure, or 3% of our revenue, is on business rates, which remain in the local community,” he says. “Those rates may mean a weekly bin collection, or two more bobbies on the beat.

“In addition, we also make annual contributions to a voluntary community fund run by independent trustees. The local parish councils are able to bid for projects such as music festivals, village hall restorations, bus shelters and so on.”

Austin says shale gas developers will have a much higher probability of getting community approval if they build on the similarities to conventional oil and gas rather than highlighting the differences. “One of the biggest obstacles is to get over the impression that the drilling rig will stay forever like a mobile phone mast or a wind turbine. The rig is there for 90 to 120 days and then it goes; all that remains is a wellhead.”

The time for talk is over. Shale gas developers like Cuadrilla and IGas now need to get on with the business of exploration to ascertain the rates at which gas flows out of the shale. Then, and only then, will we know whether shale gas can make a meaningful difference in the UK.

Mike Hill is an independent chartered engineer and director of Gemini Control & Automation based in Lytham St Annes, close to Cuadrilla Resources’ shale gas activities in West Lancashire.

Having worked as an oil & gas engineer, Hill is concerned about potential environmental damage from ‘fracking’ and has spent much of his time and money attempting to make UK authorities take the question of shale gas regulation more seriously.

In this clip, Hill says that without a post-drilling, on-site independent testing and verification regime, shale gas operators may be tempted to cut corners and thus jeopardise well integrity – vital for safe fracking operations. Interviewer: Tim Probert, October 2012.

Shale gas water lifecycle. Image: Cuadrilla Resources

Shale gas firms could find the temptation to save millions by falsely under-reporting volumes of ’fracking’ flowback fluid too strong to resist without strong regulation, according to a Lancashire-based engineer familiar with the industry.

To extract natural gas from shale rock a technique called hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is used. Millions of gallons of fluid comprising water, sand and chemicals are piped underground at high pressure to create fissures to release the gas.

Approximately 25-75% of the fluid is returned to the surface. Called flowback fluid, it typically contains extremely high levels of sodium and chloride; naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) like radium; hydrocarbons such as benzene; and trace elements of mercury, arsenic and lead; as well as the chemical additives used in fracking.

The high mineral content means flowback fluid is expected to be trucked to industrial water works for treatment and disposal. Operators must declare to the Environment Agency (EA) the volume of flowback water returned.

But Mike Hill, a Lancashire-based chartered engineer with working knowledge of fracking, said the EA does not verify the declared volumes of flowback water. “Through Freedom of Information requests I discovered the EA is not verifying the quantity of flowback fluid and their sampling visits will be announced two weeks in advance. In effect they are not regulating.”

Carte blanche to cut corners

Hill said without strong regulation shale gas firms would be given carte blanche to cut corners. “There could be 20 million gallons of flowback per ten-well pad. To lose a certain volume of this water along the way could potentially save an exploration company several millions of pounds in trucking, treatment and disposal costs.”

At present only a handful of firms, including Cuadrilla Resources, Coastal Oil & Gas and Dart Energy, hold shale gas licenses and only Cuadrilla has conducted hydraulic fracturing. When completed, however, the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) 14th Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round could see dozens of firms hold exploratory shale gas licenses across large swathes of Britain.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Cuadrilla Resources or any other company, but Hill said there would be a ”huge temptation” for other shale gas operators and their sub-contractors to minimize costs.

“I’ve worked in hydraulic fracturing for some very large oil and gas companies and I know what it can do,” he said. “And I know how these companies will behave if they know for sure that they are not going to be inspected. What’s to stop the water disappearing in a river, lake or a field?

“Drivers on the motorway know the speed limit is 70mph, but equally they know there are no policemen and no speed cameras. There is always the temptation to speed.”

The EA said the storage and disposal of flowback fluid is likely to require a permit with strict conditions attached. A spokesman said: “We would ensure these conditions are adhered to via monitoring, auditing and sampling. Like any other industry, false reporting would be an offence which could lead to prosecution.”

Fracking is currently on hold after Cuadrilla Resources was found to have caused earth tremors of magnitude 2.3 and 1.5 in April and May 2011. However, DECC is expected to give a green light to shale gas companies to resume exploratory shale gas fracking in the coming days.

1. On nuclear strike price negotiations

Ed Davey: The negotiations for Hinkley Point C are ongoing. EDF would like to conclude by the end of the year and we’re working with them to try and do that. It’s a major negotiation and it’s going very well.

Jonathan Brearley (Director of Energy Strategy and Futures): When deciding strike prices we have to compare the levelized cost of electricity with what happens to the gas price. As this so uncertain we have a range of scenarios. For nuclear the levelized cost estimate is around £80/MWh by 2020. This doesn’t necessarily feed directly into the strike price as we have to factor in the cost relative to the future price of gas, which is very uncertain, and the length of the CfD contract.

Simon Virley (Director General for Energy Markets and Infrastructure): The EU State Aid talks are ongoing, we have a good constructive dialogue with the Commission and we have done so for many months. We’ll have to wait and see what the Commission comes back with when they finally make their views known.

2. On the Levy Control Framework

Davey: We have full flexibility over how the Levy Control Framework is spent to make sure we can meet our 15% Renewable Energy Directive target. We haven’t decided what the mix could be. It’s unlikely to [be spent entirely on wind] but clearly wind is going to get quite a lot as our Renewable Energy Roadmap envisages a great deal of offshore and onshore wind by 2020.

I will write a letter to National Grid next year to give them guidance over their first CfD delivery plan. Within that I will give them guidance to make sure we’re on the least cost pathway to 2050. Many consider the MARKAL model to be the least cost pathway with significant power decarbonisation. I will not be mandating them but I will be giving them clear guidance.  This is what I agreed with the Chancellor.

3. On a decarbonisation target

Davey: I’ve made the case for a target and as part of our agreements with the Chancellor we’ll be bringing forward amendments to give powers to set that. But the target will be set in 2016 when the Fifth Carbon Budget is set for the whole economy, not just for the power sector.

Linked to the guidance I’ll be giving to National Grid, I think this approach will give the signals the industry are looking for. Our central modelling, which is the least cost path to 2050, is 100g/kWh in 2030, but we are modelling 50g/kWh and if you had an endgame of 200g/KWh.

4. On energy efficiency ‘negawatts’

Greg Barker: It’s very difficult. The concept of the negawatt – that the cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t use – is very simple. But actually creating an at-scale system which places value on that, which can be verified, traded and brings genuine additionality at scale is really difficult.

Britain could be a ‘World Leader’ in this and I want us to go beyond California and Japan and establish a new benchmark for delivering energy efficiency. But don’t let anyone tell you it is easy. Getting down to the nitty gritty is really, really difficult and I don’t underestimate the challenge.

5. On onshore wind ‘targets’

Davey: There are no targets in the Renewable Energy Roadmap, there are pathways and aspirations. We don’t micro-manage where all those private investors put their money.

Both John and I have been saying that we will meet our onshore wind aspiration but different people like to report our words slightly differently.

We are not dictating the mix of renewables now or in the future. This is not a statist approach saying ‘We’ll have 5 GW of this, 6 GW of that and 7 GW of the other’. We are moving towards the market deciding the amount of onshore wind in the 2020s.

6.  On whether the Energy Minister dislikes onshore wind

John Hayes:  There are issues about community consent and I’ve always said that there are issues about the aesthetics and the relationship between localities. The planning system takes into account the concerns between any development and its locality.

7. On shale gas

Davey: The Chancellor will have a number of things to say about shale gas in next Wednesday’s Autumn Statement. The Cuadrilla decision [to permit the resumption of hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking] is mine to make on an almost quasi-judicial basis and we haven’t set a date for that, and I’m not prepared to give a date for that.

There are certain things I have to have and things I have to go through in the proper process before I make that decision. I am going through that process now.

8. On a capacity market

Davey: We think the evidence for a capacity market is extremely strong. If you don’t have intervention we will have very expensive peak prices. A capacity market would reduce those peaks and offset the capacity payments.

We haven’t yet decided to introduce it because we want to see more evidence before we make a final decision next year.  This is a major intervention and it’s absolutely sensible we wait for further advice from National Grid and Ofgem.

9. On the impact on consumer bills

Davey: By 2020 the impact on consumer bills will be £94 a year. Our latest estimate suggests our energy and climate change policy will see bills down £95 by 2020 than they otherwise would have been. The cost of exempting energy intensive users from CfD levies would be socialized across the rest of business and consumers.

Barker: There’s a difference between prices and bills. It is misleading to focus only on price. In Germany, prices are higher but bills are about the same as the UK because they use less energy. In the 21^st century you have to incorporate usage and efficiency alongside price.

10. On whether an exemption for energy intensive users disincentivizes investment in on-site power

Barker: We are the early stages of a renaissance of industrial CHP. Yesterday I had a meeting with Business Minister Michael Fallon and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury [Chloe Smith] to think at a strategic level specifically to drive CHP and embed on-site generation in the economy.

Cuadrilla Resources’ capped exploratory gas well in Cowden, Kent

Last week I attended SMi’s timely Shale Gas Environmental Summit in London.  Timely because the UK government is now sending clear messages that there is too much hot air spouted about shale gas and believes it will not be a game-changer as in the United States.

Here are my top ten ‘takeaways’ from the summit, some positive, some negative.

1.       There is a great deal more shale gas than current official estimates state.

The Environment Agency’s head of climate change and sustainable development Tony Grayling said the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the British Geological Survey’s (BGS) joint report on unconventional hydrocarbons – expected to be released by DECC around the turn of the year – will show that UK shale gas reserves estimates will be “nearer to Cuadrilla’s estimate of 6,000 billion cubic metres (BCM)” than previous estimates of 150 BCM.

A quick note is needed here. DECC/BGS’ 2010 estimate showed potential UK shale gas recoverable reserves of 150 BCM. By comparison, annual UK consumption is 90 BCM.

Cuadrilla’s estimate of 6,000 BCM is just for its exploration area in Lancashire – about 500 square miles  – not the whole of the UK. Furthermore, Cuadrilla’s estimate is for total ‘gas in place’ in the shale, not recoverable reserves.

Grayling said: “The new estimate will be volumetric rather than area-based and we can certainly expect their estimate to be a lot higher”.

2.       A seismic activity limit of 0.5 magnitude ought not to be a show-stopper.

In April, an independent report published by DECC recommended fracking should be immediately halted if seismic activity is recorded of a magnitude of 0.5 or above, far below Cuadrilla Resources’ proposed level of 1.7.

The EA’s Tony Grayling said a 0.5 limit was practicable.  “The reason why the DECC report set the seismic limit at 0.5 magnitude far lower than the 1.7 is because there is a time delay between the fracking process and larger tremors. Unless you stop them at a lower level you risk a larger tremor later.”

The seismicity report is out for consultation and a response from DECC is expected in July. In the meantime, fracking is suspended in the UK.

Tony Grayling, Head of Climate Change and Sustainable Development, Environment Agency

3.       The risk to groundwater is from surface drilling, not horizontal fracking

The main risks to groundwater contamination are on the surface, relating to construction and operation of shale gas drilling wells, says Grayling. “The surface must be lined,” he said. “We don’t think the risks are from the fracking process itself, as this occurs 2-3 km below the surface.”

Evidence from the US suggests that as long as the well is properly constructed, the fractures do not provide a route for pollutants – at least in the geology of Lancashire – to enter into groundwater. Grayling added: “Using micro-seismic monitoring of the propagation of fractures through the shales we will have empirical evidence to confirm US evidence that they don’t propagate beyond the shale field [and into aquifers].”

Grayling notes that the Bowland shale is a saline aquifer and is not suitable for drinking water.

4.       Current national and EU regulations are adequate for shale gas exploration but inadequate for shale gas production

Grayling said: “Current regulation is adequate for small-scale exploration but we are keeping that under review. We don’t yet know whether we have everything we need for exploration. We probably do not have all the information we need to effectively deploy our regulatory powers in all the circumstances that may arise from future circumstances.

“We are undertaking more detailed environmental assessment work this financial year with DECC, DEFRA and HSE.”

Simon Whitehead, managing director of energy PR firm Hill & Knowlton

5.       Shale gas is a PR disaster, says WPP firm

Simon Whitehead, managing director of Hill and Knowlton, an energy PR firm owned by Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP, says there is “no love for shale gas” in the UK mostly due to the Gasland movie’s infamous flaming water taps scene.

In full business-pitch mode, Whitehead said: “There needs to be an industry-wide, offensive campaign with a fresh new narrative giving more of a brand feel to shale gas developments. Fracking needs a re-brand, perhaps with a ‘kitemark’ for safe developers.”

Whitehead also says Cuadrilla has made a mistake by probably over-estimating their potential shale gas resources. “Cuadrilla has over-egged the issue. Their claims about gas in place against recoverable reserves are still confused and people don’t really know the answer.”

6.       Cuadrilla’s shale gas operations in Lancashire are more politically risky than Cairn Energy’s Arctic oil drilling in Greenland.

Rob Foulkes of Critical Resource, a quasi-ratings agency of socio-political risks for energy developments, rates Cuadrilla’s license to operate in Lancashire as a ‘B’, the same as Cairn Energy’s arctic oil drilling in Baffin Bay, Greenland.

The rating was based on site visits and interviews before Cuadrilla halted drilling last May due to seismic activity. This controversy, says Foulkes, may have notched the rating downwards.

External risks of shale gas such as seismic activity, water pollution, air pollution and visual impact, regulatory uncertainty, poor performance in the US, uncertainty of science, and polarized public opinion “have the capacity to substantially undermine Cuadrilla’s operations,” he said.

Professor Paul Ekins, Director of Energy and Environment Policy Research, University College London

7.       Fugitive methane emissions are estimated at 4%, which could make shale gas more environmentally damaging than coal, says UCL energy professor

Studies suggest fugitive emissions may total 4% of total gas captured from fracking, higher than conventional gas, says UCL’s Paul Ekins. “You only need fugitive emissions of 3-9% for gas to be equivalent to emissions from coal in power stations. Unless you can be very sure that these fugitive emissions won’t occur then the carbon benefits of substituting coal generation with gas might be seriously undermined.”

8.       Flowback water is the “number one” pollution issue affecting shale gas, says gas lawyer

“If I had a chart of potential threats of pollution from shale gas, flowback water would be at the top of the list,” says gas markets lawyer Professor Alan Riley of City University Gray’s Inn. “One of the problems of the explosion of shale gas development in the US has been that the wastewater treatment plants haven’t been able to deal with the volume and the nature of the waste. This is a major problem if you want to drill hundreds of wells in the production stage.”

9.       Even if gas prices drop 50%, shale gas is still no ‘gamechanger’, says Committee on Climate Change

David Kennedy, chief executive of the influential Committee on Climate Change, said its forthcoming annual report to Parliament contains a scenario where UK gas prices fall to US levels of around 35 pence per therm (compared to European levels of around 70p now).

“Even in this extreme case,” said Kennedy, “Shale gas is not a gamechanger. You’d still want to decarbonize the power sector in order to prevent higher energy bills in the long term. There is no economic rationale for a second dash for gas.”

David Kennedy, Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change

10.   The low calorific value of shale gas is a major issue, says gas guru

The average calorific value (CV) of the UK national gas grid is 39.5 megajoules per cubic metre; shale gas is quite low at around 37. To get round this, shale gas suppliers may have to inject propane, which costs 140p per therm, into gas transmission pipelines to make up for the shortfall.

“This is a major issue,” said John Baldwin, managing director of CNG Services Limited. “You probably will have to add propane in LTS (Local Transmission Systems).”

For injection into the National Transmission System (NTS), there would need to be “thousands of calorific value measurement devices all over the UK”, said Baldwin, in order to ensure accurate billing, as the lower CV of shale gas would mean end-users pay for gas priced at a higher CV than received.

Shale gas water management schematic. Courtesy Schlumberger

Water and energy have always had a close relationship, but shale gas and water are particularly intimate. Water is integral to shale gas drilling and there is a growing market, estimated to be worth up to $100 billion in the United States, for wastewater treatment. Tim Probert explores the opportunities and challenges in Europe. This articlewas first published in the April/May 2012 edition of Water and Wastewater International.

There is no question that shale gas has been a ‘game-changer’ in the US. From virtually nothing ten years ago, shale gas now accounts for around a quarter of domestic natural gas production.

Can the same happen in Europe? According to the US Energy Industry Administration, Europe has up to 480 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of “technically recoverable shale gas resources”, compared with 862 tcf in the US. This would be enough to meet current consumption levels for approximately 25 years, but getting the gas out of the Earth’s crust is a heavily industrial process and will be more tightly regulated in the European Union than in the US.

In contrast to conventional gas extracted from porous rock, shale is relatively impermeable, meaning gas cannot easily move through the shale in which the well is drilled. In order to release the gas, drillers use a method called hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, essentially pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure. Shale gas developers use a technique called pad drilling, with up to ten drill wells radiating horizontally for distances of up to six miles from a single site, or pad.

This technique has been used for decades, but the improved ability to steer drill bits using off-the-shelf technology has made horizontal fracking cost-effective. The facility to perform surface data acquisition to locate gas in the rock, rather than drill right through the shale as previously, has also brought down costs.

A controversial practice

Fracking, however, is highly controversial and there are moratoria in France, Bulgaria and in some regions of the US, Australia, South Africa and Canada. Most of the opposition to fracking centres on the use of water.

Numerous scare stories emanating from the US, of inflammable water supplies, polluted ponds and exploding houses, not to mention seismic activity in the UK, have added fuel to the environmentalists’ fire.  However, there is growing, robust evidence of ground- and surface water pollution due to poor practice and slack regulation; fracking is exempted from federal Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts.

Cuadrilla Resources, which last year announced that a 500 square mile area in northwest England contains enough shale gas for more than 50 years consumption, is operating a number of exploratory wells in the UK. It claims to use ten fracking methods “fundamentally different” from the US.

These include the use of steel tanks to store flowback water rather than in a bare pit dug out of the earth; an impermeable plastic sheath 18 inches below the top gravel layer onsite to prevent leakage of flowback water and facilitate easy capture of spills; and monitoring wells to detect methane leaks in shallow water supplies used by farmers.

Cuadrilla will also use surface and intermediate cement casing of boreholes to a depth of up to 1000 feet to protect contamination of aquifers.  Regulations in New York State, for example, require casing to a depth of just 50 feet to preventing contamination of gas in water supplies.

Draft to Study the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on Drinking Water, US EPA, February 2011.

Water goes in

It is estimated that a shale gas well requires between 9-29 million litres per well. A report by the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change estimates 2580-3000 wells would be required to produce 9 billion cubic metres per year of shale gas, equivalent to 10 per cent of national annual consumption.

This volume of gas implies a total annual water requirement of up to 87 billion litres. To the uninitiated this sounds an awful lot of water, but the figure is dwarfed by the 1.2 trillion litres lost in the UK in 2011 from pipe leakage.

Added to the water, equivalent to around 0.25 per cent of total fracking fluid used, are three additional ingredients: a friction reducer called polyacrylamide; a biocide to purify water; and a weak hydrochloric acid (E507) to help open the perforations to initiate frack fluid injection. The use of these chemicals are another source of controversy, but the European Commission and the Environment Agency (EA), which regulates water usage in England & Wales, have declared these chemicals safe.

Water comes out

With respect to water usage, pumping fracking fluid into the well is the easy part.  Approximately 10-40 per cent of the fluid returns to the surface.   This flowback fluid is lucrative yet pretty nasty stuff, and yet another source of controversy.

As well as the target natural gas (mostly methane plus propane, butane, and ethane), the flowback water contains other gases such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen and helium; naturally-occurring brine, trace elements of mercury, arsenic and lead; naturally occurring radioactive material (radium, thorium, uranium); and volatile organic compounds that easily vaporise into the air, such as benzene. Herein lay the challenges and opportunities for water and wastewater companies.

Flowback rates during first two weeks of fracking average 3,000-5,000 barrels/day (bpd) (357,000 to 595,000 litres), declining rapidly to a few 100 bpd. Further decline is gradual, estimated at 10-20 bpd after a few months.

There are four primary options for dealing with flowback.  The first option is the also easiest and cheapest: reuse it without treatment.  Reusing untreated water is frequently performed in the US, but continued reuse will lead to problems as the high level of contaminants may plug the gas wells with residual chemicals, precipitates or shale fines.

The second option is deep well injection. Simply drilling another well to store the water, however, is not without problems: in March, Ohio state regulators said a dozen earthquakes in the state’s northeast were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth and analysts say this option will be almost impossible in Europe due to stricter legislation.

The third option is on-site treatment for reuse. This option is used to remove most TSS (total suspended solids), acid-producing bacteria and scaling materials like barium, calcium, iron, magnesium and strontium, which are likely to clog the well if returned to the gas reservoir.

Typical capacity for this option is 2,400-14,000 bpd.  Having removed most TSS, typically from 500-1000 mg/l to 50/mg/l, this treated water is then mixed with fresh water and re-used for fracking. As everything is done on site, this option has negligible transport costs.

The fourth option is on- or off-site treatment for discharge as fresh water, which can, of course, be used for fracking. The main objective is to remove TDS (total dissolved solids) in flowback, which can reach extremely high levels of both concentration and variability. Flowback from fracking operations in the Haynesville shale, which covers southwestern Arkansas, northwest Louisiana and East Texas, can contain between 500-250,000 mg/l.

TDS removal, which must be down to 500 mg/l to meet US Environmental Protection Agency standards, is done on-site by using or mobile units or off-site at central treatment plants. Typical capacity of off-site treatment would be 12,000 to 48,000 bpd. Due to the large volume of water, transportation costs become a cost factor.

Karim Essemiani, business & marketing manager for Veolia Water S&T Oil and Gas, estimates the costs of TSS removal in the US at between $3-6/bbl, rising to $20/bbl for TDS removal including equipment, operation, labour, chemicals, sludge handling etc.

GE mobile fracking water evaporator

Flowback treatment technologies

For on-site TSS treatment, the process typically involves a five-step process. The first is chlorine dioxide oxidation, which breaks oil/grease emulsions; destroys friction reducers and other chemical additives; and kills bacteria.

Step two is dissolved air flotation which floats oil, grease and TSS to the top of the chamber. Liquid-phase activated carbon then removes most hydrocarbons and other organics, before chemical precipitation removes the aforementioned scale‐forming compounds. Finally, a conventional sand filter removes the TSS.

There are two viable options for TDS removal from shale gas flowback: thermal distillation and membrane filtration.  A commonly-deployed method for flowback water desalination uses an integrated three-stage mobile RO system.  The first phase is pre-treatment using chemical flocculation, clarification and oil removal; phase two is cold lime softening; and the third stage uses micro-, ultra- and nano-filtration, as well as reverse osmosis.

Energy costs of RO are one-tenth of mechanical evaporation, but inadequate pre-treatment can result in significant fouling and scaling leading to costly membrane replacement. Furthermore, RO is unsuitable for treating flowback with TDS greater than 50,000 mg/l.

The most common method to remove TDS is thermal distillation via a mobile vapour recompression (MVR) evaporator unit, offered by a number of leader water technology companies such as GE Water, Veolia and Aquatech.  Here, the incoming flowback water is boiled to produce steam, while all dissolved solids remain in the concentrate. The resulting steam is then condensed into pure water.  While energy costs are higher than RO, MVR units are able to cope with high TDS concentrations of 50,000-250,000 mg/l.

Once RO or thermal distillation is complete the brine concentrate has to be treated, usually through an off-site crystallizer.  A 1 million gallon a day crystallization plant will generate approximately 400 tons a day of salt waste, which will require disposal in a solid waste landfill.

Opportunities for the water industry

Michael Coffey, managing director of water consultants Aquastrat, says shale gas offers several revenue streams for the water and wastewater industry, not only from treating flowback water, but also flowback water data management and laboratory analysis, while treated brine could be sold for road de-icing.

Coffey is confident water utilities can cope from waste materials in flowback water, but it may not want to, despite the opportunities. “At the moment, they don’t see anything that differs from other industrial activities, but they are slightly concerned about the concentrations of chemicals.

The consultant notes the US state of Pennsylvania has issued a decree preventing any flowback water from being treated at wastewater treatment plants because of high levels of bromide, which when disinfected creates a compound called brominated trihalomethanes linked to several types of cancer and birth defects.

“There are issues over the interplay of bromides used in fracking fluids and chlorine in water treatment plants,” he says. “I’m not saying it can’t be dealt with but the shale gas industry needs to be upfront as part of its water strategy.”

Another pressing concern is radiation. Analysis by the EA of Cuadrilla Resources’ Preese Hall exploratory well found significant levels of radium-226 above legal limits. Although the concentration of radioactivity is low, the total volume of return fluids is large, large enough to require a permit for disposal at its intended destination, United Utilities’ Davyhulme plant in Greater Manchester.

Nearly a year on from the EA’s visits, however, Cuadrilla has still yet to attain a permit, which requires a full radiological impact assessment, and the flowback water remains in steel tanks on the fracking site.

South East Water has expressed concern over fracking and is working with Water UK for water companies to be included as statutory consultees on planning applications. A spokesperson said: “We accept the risks to water supplies do exist. In particular, the risks to drinking water supplies need to be addressed to ensure the safety of our customers’ water quality is maintained.”

Stricter regulation means higher costs

Lucy Field, of energy consultants Poyry, who has authored a report for the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change about unconventional gas, says water usage and disposal is the single biggest most prohibitive factor in shale gas development. “The UK is in the middle of a drought and supplying water to fracking sites could be difficult in certain regions. We have enough trouble supplying water for our everyday needs.

“But the main issue is water disposal: the flowback water can only be recycled at most three times before it has to be disposed. In US they truck the water in and out, but in the UK they may have to build pipelines, which costs.

Field says if best practice is followed fracking can be done safely, but following the UK’s strict water regulations correctly will be expensive. “Due to the population density and relative shortage of land, plus the cost of meeting more stringent regulations, we expect the costs of production will be at the very least 50 per cent higher than in the US,” she says.

Europe has the advantage of learning from good practice and the mistakes made by first-movers in the US. Shale gas offers tremendous benefits in terms of wealth and job creation, but if it is to be a game-changer in Europe as in the US, it is fundamentally important that the water industry is fully engaged with any shale gas drilling activity.

UK’s Bowland shale well schematic. Source: Cuadrilla Resources

Vanessa Vine front left and Green MEP Keith Taylor front right at Ardingly Reservoir in Sussex with supporters of No Fracking In Sussex.

To some, shale gas is potentially the best thing energy development in Britain since North Sea oil. To others, shale gas is a potential environmental catastrophe. Will the growing environmental opposition to hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, stop shale gas in Sussex in its tracks? Tim Probert digs deep. This article was first published in the May 2012 issue of Sussex Life.

Last September, US oil company Cuadrilla Resources announced a 500 square miles area of the Bowland sedimentary rock basin in West Lancashire held  ten times existing UK natural gas reserves, enough for more than 50 years’ consumption at current rates.  Cuadrilla now believes there could be a sizeable quantity of unconventional oil and gas in the Weald and Wessex basins.

While no shale gas drilling has yet taken place in Sussex, Cuadrilla has permission to test drill for oil and gas at Lower Stumble, a mile south of Balcombe in West Sussex. Cuadrilla intends to drill at the same site on the 3,000-acre Balcombe Estate where oil major Conoco started, and later abandoned, an exploratory well in 1986.

Mark Miller, CEO of Cuadrilla Resources, is using the undoubted success story of Wytch Farm in Dorset – which BP developed to be Western Europe’s largest onshore oilfield – as a role model. However, in contrast to this ‘conventional’ oil and gas, extracted from porous rock, shale is relatively impermeable, meaning gas cannot easily move through the shale in which a well is drilled.

In order to break open the shale and release the methane, shale gas drillers use a method called hydraulic fracturing, also known as ‘fracking’, essentially pumping large amounts of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure.  Therein lies the rub. Fracking is highly controversial and has been banned in France, Bulgaria and in some regions of Germany, the United States, Australia, South Africa and Canada.

Most of the opposition centres on the use of water.  Shale gas requires approximately 30 million gallons of water per drilling site. Approximately one-third of this water is returned to the surface and this ‘flowback’ fluid typically contains methane, naturally occurring radioactive substances, metals and volatile compounds such as benzene.

Numerous scare stories emanating from the United States, of inflammable water supplies, polluted ponds and exploding houses, have added fuel to the environmentalists’ fire. Closer to home, an independent study concluded two small earthquakes near Blackpool on 1 April and 27 May 2011 were directly attributable to Cuadrilla’s fracking activities.

Cuadrilla Resources’ oil and gas borehole at Lower Stumble on the Balcombe Estate. Cuadrilla has planning permission to commence exploratory fracking at the West Sussex site. Alec Smart Fotos.

Fracking is safe, say authorities

Miller says Cuadrilla will use ten fracking methods in the UK “fundamentally different” from the United States. These include the use of steel tanks to store flowback water rather than in a bare pit dug out of the earth; impermeable plastic sheaths to prevent leakage; and monitoring wells to detect methane leaks in shallow water supplies used by farmers.

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency has concluded there is no risk to groundwater if regulations are adhered to, while the British Geological Survey says groundwater pollution is extremely unlikely. Lucy Field, of Oxford-based energy consultants Pöyry, author of a shale gas report for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, says the environmental opposition to shale gas is overblown.

“Quite a lot of the scare stories are inaccurate,” she says. “Clearly there have been instances of pollution which can’t be ignored, but these are mostly due to poor practice.  If best practice is followed, such as proper cementing of wells, fracking can be done safely.”

Opposition to fracking by local residents could be viewed as perfectly rational, as there are no immediate benefits to the community but plenty of drawbacks should an accident occur. However, Simon Greenwood, owner of the Balcombe Estate, which earns thousands of pounds in annual rent from Cuadrilla, says he has more to lose than anyone.

“There has been some measured concern expressed locally but also a lot that is ill-informed,” he says. “If there was a problem I would have as much to lose or more to lose than anyone else; if it is detrimental to Balcombe, it is detrimental to me.”

Anti-shale gas group Frack Off unveil their banner at Brighton station. Alec Smart Fotos.

Fracking is unsafe, say campaigners

Whatever the realities, the negative public publicity for fracking has galvanized increasing numbers of people to protest against shale gas development. Vanessa Vine, co-ordinator of the No Fracking in Sussex protest group, believes fracking could irreversibly pollute the region’s drinking water supplies.

Vine notes the Lower Stumble site is located 100 yards from the London to Brighton mainline, and less than a mile from both Ardingly Reservoir and 170-year old Balcombe Viaduct.  “There are too many unknowns Cuadrilla won’t answer, like whether or not the fracking water would come from the Ardingly Reservoir, which is already at very low levels due to drought,” she says. “And can we be sure that even a small earthquake would not cause damage to an ancient Grade II viaduct?’

In response to a statement released by Cuadrilla last December signalling its intentions at Lower Stumble, Vine organized a meeting at Balcombe Victory Hall on January 11, inviting Cuadrilla’s Miller to speak. Miller agreed, with the express intention of winning round the local population with arguments based in fact, not emotion.

The meeting attracted more than 250 attendees and a passionate debate ensued. The meeting was covered by BBC radio and independent television news, while prominent features appeared in The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.

Public awareness of fracking in Sussex – and opposition – is growing. In February, a nationwide protest group, Frack Off, unveiled a 22 m2 anti-fracking banner, for which a local property developer has given permission to display for four months in full view of trains from London and the South East, on a billboard at Brighton station.

Does Vine think the protest movement can put a stop to shale oil and gas fracking in Sussex? “I do not see it as a foregone conclusion that there will be fracking all over the place. We are not the United States and people aren’t used to seeing nodding donkeys on fields in Britain. They can’t get away with it in such densely populated land as Sussex.”

Whether the Balcombe site will ever be developed is still very much yet to be decided, says Miller. “We have no immediate plans in Balcombe but we have a deadline of 2014 to decide whether to drill or lose the licence,” he says.

“Exploration is a high risk venture and the percentage of exploration wells that go into production is very small. We have a number of these licence areas that we may never go forward with. Lower Stumble is one on our list that we’re debating.”

Whether or not shale gas goes into production in Sussex remains to be seen, but the Battle of Balcombe continues to rumble on.

Shale gas drilling rig operated by Cuadrilla Resources

An independent report published today by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) recommends shale gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking) should be immediately halted if seismic activity is recorded of a magnitude (M) of 0.5 or above, far below Cuadrilla Resources’ proposed level of 1.7M.

Shale gas developer Cuadrilla Resources, which last September claimed that a 500 square miles area of the Bowland sedimentary rock basin in West Lancashire holds 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, was forced to halt exploratory fracking last year after the British Geological Survey suggested its operations were causing earth tremors.

A series of studies were commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources to examine the possible relationship between hydraulic fracture operations at its Preese Hall site, near Blackpool, and a total of 50 seismic events up to 2.3M detected between 31 March to 27 May 2011. After admitting that fracking had caused seismic events, Cuadrilla proposed a maximum magnitude threshold of 1.7M before it would halt operations.

Today’s report, co-authored by the British Geological Survey, says this level could be too high to prevent potential structural damage. The report states: “We consider that the maximum magnitude threshold of 1.7M initially proposed is undesirably high from the viewpoint of prudent conduct of future operations.

“This was based on the critical magnitude 2.6 M and a maximum post-injection magnitude increase of 0.9 M. However, we note that, based on this limit, no action would have been taken before the magnitude 2.3 M event on 1 April 2011. We recommend a threshold of 0.5 M for cessation of operations, to minimise the probability of further felt earthquakes.

“We consider that this would be a prudent threshold value, to reduce the likelihood of events perceptible to local residents, and to offer a higher margin of safety against any possibility of damage to property.”

The report effectively gives the go-ahead to Cuadrilla to continue shale gas exploration at Preese Hall, but there will be questions as to whether the low magnitude limit and other recommendations are workable. Others may take a view that the limit has been set low to mitigate potential for any more negative publicity regarding fracking and seismic activity.

The report also sets out a number of best practice methods recommended for any hydraulic fracture developments:

1. Formal risk assessment of potential well drilling and completion operation impacts, prior to spudding the well;

2. Geophysical logging, to delineate the base of freshwater aquifers and determine reservoir parameters;

3. Surface casing and packers/cement deep enough to protect freshwater aquifers;

4. Production completion (casing/cement packers) designed to prevent upward migration of reservoir and injected fluids (e.g. intermediate string inclusion, if necessary);

5. Cement bond logging and pressure testing of each completion string to ensure good seals;

6. Drilling and frac fluid storage in tanks and offsite burial of drill cuttings;

7. Fracture diagnostics, especially microseismic and tiltmeter monitoring of hydraulic fracture growth;

8. Avoidance of fracturing near faults/subsurface structures;

9. Reuse of frac fluid to reduce freshwater resource impacts and potential disposal issues;

10. Water sampling before and after drilling/HF operations to ensure no aquifer contamination;

11. Regular updates and frequent engagement with stakeholders, about ongoing operations.

The full report can be read here: 5055-preese-hall-shale-gas-fracturing-review-and-recomm

Potential scenarios of methane pollution from shale. Source: Nature, September 2011.

The British Geological Survey’s (BGS) study to establish levels of methane in groundwater in the UK will not include sites ‘fracked’ by Cuadrilla Resources in Lancashire.

These sites operated by Cuadrilla, which last year claimed that a 500 square mile area around Blackpool, Preston and Southport contains enough methane to meet national gas demand for at least 50 years, are the only current fracking sites in the UK. The firm halted drilling last May, however, after the BGS concluded fracking at Cuadrilla’s Preese Hall 1 shale gas well had likely caused two small earthquakes off the Fylde coast.

According to the BGS, evidence from the USA has shown very high methane concentrations in groundwater in areas of shale gas exploitation, which has been directly related to shale gas operations. Yet there is considerable uncertainty as to the source of methane and there is no baseline data on methane concentrations in groundwater before the onset of shale gas exploitation.

Last December the BGS commenced a year-long project to establish the baseline of methane levels in groundwater in seven areas: Northern Ireland; South Wales; the East Pennines (Cleveland Basin); the Wessex and Weald Basin in Southern England; the East Midlands, the Northumberland Trough; and Lancashire.

Cuadrilla Resources’ capped gas well in Cowden, Kent

However, according to Dr. Rob Ward, head of groundwater science at the BGS, the study will not include Cuadrilla’s existing sites despite its use of fracking to determine its estimate of 200 trillion cubic feet for gas in place in the Bowland Shale.

“We are not testing those specific areas,” he told Millicent Media. ”At the moment [Cuadrilla] is not exploiting shale gas, it has only drilled exploratory wells. This is a strategic survey to build up a national baseline against which environmental impacts can be assessed and appropriate management decisions taken if large-scale exploitation goes ahead.”

At each region, the BGS will identify 20-25 monitoring sites, such as boreholes, to take samples of groundwater. Once sampled, the BGS will test for concentrations of dissolved methane.

Dr. Rob Ward, head of groundwater science at the British Geological Survey. Source: BGS

If the BGS finds elevated levels, says Dr. Ward, it will conduct a more rigorous (isotopic) analysis to determine whether the methane is biogenic, which is usually produced from organic material in peatbogs, landfill etc., or thermogenic methane, which is produced from material buried at depth like shale.

“At the 2-4 km depths I anticipate shale gas will be explored and potentially exploited in the UK the methane will be of thermogenic origin, so it would have an isotopic signature which would enable us to disassociate it from, for example, landfill gas.”

Dr. Ward said the BGS started the study in South Wales in December.  Due to scarce resources, he says, the study is “limited” and has no official budget, with funds being reallocated from other projects. Just “five or six” people are working on the study, Dr. Ward added.

The study is, however, self-funded and independent. Dr. Ward expects sampling to be completed by the end of 2012, with a report due to be published in 2013.

Around 250 attended Balcombe Village Hall fracking meeting on 11 January

Last night I enjoyed the spectacle of a shale gas public relations car crash in the charming West Sussex village of Balcombe.

Last year shale oil and gas firm Cuadrilla Resources obtained a license to commence exploratory drilling at Lower Stumble, 1 mile south of the village. A hardcover surface has been prepared, and a shallow hole has been drilled on the site.

Under the planning permission granted by West Sussex County Council, Cuadrilla has provision to use hydraulic fracturing at this test borehole. As part of the planning application the company states: “There may be a need to stimulate … by pumping water under pressure into the natural fractures in the shale formations to open them up to allow the gas to flow more freely.” In other words, fracking.

At the request of the ‘No Fracking in Sussex’ group, CEO of Cuadrilla Resources Mark Miller and his right-hand man, COO Eric Vaughan, agreed to speak at Balcombe village hall to answer questions about exploratory shale oil and gas drilling.

The meeting was not a formal consultation, but a voluntary public meeting. The village hall was absolutely packed. All 100 seats were filled, leaving standing room only for another 100-150 more in attendance. A Balcombe resident told me no more than half of the attendees actually lived in the village, with the rest seemingly environmentalists, ecologists and others of an ‘anti-fracking’ persuasion.

It was obvious from the start that most attendees were not overly enamoured with the prospect of their village becoming a fracking site and it didn’t take long before the meeting swiftly descended into an almost out-of-control verbal melee, an oratorical riot against fracking.

Difficult as it may be for Cuadrilla Resources to put across their point of view in such circumstances, they made a total hash of it. Although Cuadrilla stressed it had no firm plans to put its option to commence fracking in Balcombe into practice, very few believed them.

I came away thinking Cuadrilla’s plans to exploit the Weald Basin shale rock of Kent, Sussex and Surrey for oil and gas will be very tough and the meeting had only made an already stiff challenge more difficult.

I cannot imagine for a moment that a major oil firm would have engaged with the local population about so sensitive a subject in this fashion. Decent chaps they may be, but Cuadrilla came across as amateurs.

Should Cuadrilla ever decide to attend a similar public meeting in future, here are my top ten tips for not ‘fracking’ it up.

1. Don’t attend a public meeting about fracking when 99% of the local population had only heard about your plans a few days beforehand

Apart from the crack troupe of anti-fracking campaigners, barely anyone had a clue about what is planned in Balcombe. Such a melting pot of ignorance, confusion and anger does not make for rational, informed debate.

2. Don’t appear too American

The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Cuadrilla Resources are American. Fair enough; the vast majority of global shale gas expertise is to be found in America. But Cuadrilla does have a British senior manager in Peter Turner, head of exploration, from Lancashire. There were a number of comments along the lines of ‘The Americans are taking over our village’. Doesn’t create a good impression in a deeply conservative West Sussex village.

3. Don’t bring along your PR guy who also happens to be a district councillor specialising in planning applications

Nick Sutcliffe, who represents Cuadrilla’s lobbying firm PPS Group, has lobbied the Department of Energy and Climate Change to garner political support for fracking. Mr Sutcliffe is also a councillor who serves on the planning committee at Guildford District Council. Again, doesn’t look good chaps.

4. Don’t allow the chairman to lose control of the floor

Poor Charles Metcalfe, a Balcombe resident of ten years, was unable to cope with the constant interruptions and interjections from an angry audience.

Miller couldn’t get through his highly informative and quite impressive PowerPoint presentation and during the tiresome Q&A, he was endlessly prevented from answering questions in full. Having to deal with all the questions flying around made the Cuadrilla representatives appear shifty, defensive and nervous.

5. Don’t forget to espouse the benefits to the local population

Unfortunately there was no straw poll to ascertain public support for Cuadrilla’s plans, but if there had the number of supporters would have been counted on one hand.

I can’t blame the villagers for their total lack of support for fracking. At no point did Cuadrilla make any mention of potential benefits to the community. No mention of jobs and other economic benefits. It seemed to be all take and no give. With no incentives, why on earth should residents be anything but vehemently opposed?

Mark Miller, CEO of Cuadrilla Resources, addresses a packed Balcombe village hall

6. Don’t come ill-prepared

Mark Miller repeatedly tried to assure the meeting that Cuadrilla had no firm plans to frack for oil and gas in Balcombe. But this very lack of a plan only aroused suspicion. If they had no plans, what were they doing there?

7. Don’t suddenly announce that you might have to build a power plant in the village if you find shale gas

Half-way through the meeting Miller said that, actually, Cuadrilla wants to frack for oil, not gas, using the undoubted success story of Wytch Farm in Dorset – which BP developed to be Western Europe’s largest onshore oilfield – as a role model. Great. What happens to the gas? “We may have to build a power plant onsite,” came the reply. Again, this does not impress an increasingly befuddled audience.

8. Don’t allow one-sided, polemic films about the “evils” of fracking to be shown immediately before you make your presentation

Bad move. Made the audience bay for Miller’s blood.

9. Don’t talk like a politician

The good folk of Balcombe became increasingly aggrieved when Miller qualified his virtually every statement with words like ‘possibly’, ‘probably’ and ‘potentially’.  Miller particularly got their goat when he began to start his sentences with ‘Typically…’.

10. Be prepared when the vice-chairman of the Parish Council admits it didn’t have a clue what it was doing when it approved the planning application for oil and gas exploratory drilling in its village without telling anybody

And also when the County Council senses that approving a shale oil and gas production license would be unpopular in the extreme and reassures the audience with promises that it now understands the full environmental implications of fracking and has powers to stop shale oil and gas production in the village.

The Balcombe Village Association says they plan to hold another meeting in the coming months. At this stage, I should not expect a return appearance from the CEO of Cuadrilla.