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October 6, 2011
 
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' ~ • • • " "''" "? < : ' • ΈΈΈ:=Έ7 ':': :"" ~"-",•~ :--~,•:rΈ '" • ' v "- Page 6 October 6, 2011 0 A flare from an oil and gas well burns northwest of Belfield. (File Photo Richard Volesky) Thirty percent of natural g flared in N.D, By Clifford Krauss New York Times Note: The following was reprint- ed with permission of the New York 7}rues. NEW TOWN - Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above lields of wheat and sunflow- ers and bales of ha5'. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant lireflies. They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rush- ing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil. and with less economic incen- tive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas ag:waste and simply burn it. Every day, more than 100 mil- lion cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way -- enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day. "One day a regu- lator is going to say, 'I'm not going to give you one more permit until you tell me what you are going to do with the gas.'" Charif Souki industry. Most oil and gas fields in the United States have well-devel- oped facilities to gather and process gas. But the recent rise of shale drilling has changed the economic calculus. Natural gas prices have The flared gas also spews at those same techniques have opened carbon least two. million tons of " - up otge rshatefields. fich ithoil. dioxide into the atmosphere every }ear, as much as 384!)00 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some envi- ronmentalists. All told, 30 percent of the natu- ral gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the prac- tice is still common in countries like Russia. Nigeria and Iran. With few government regula- tions that limit the flaring, more burning is also taking place in the Eag!e Ford shale field in Texas, and some environmentalists and indus- try executives say that it could hap- pen in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio, too. as drilling expands in new fields there unlocked by tech- niques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. "North Dakota is not as bad as Kazakhstan, but this is not what you would expect a civilized, efficient society to do: to flare oft" a perfectly good product just because it's expensive to bring to market," said Michael E. Webber, associate direc- tor of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy T at the L niversit} of Texas at Austin. The oil companies say econom- ic reality is driving the flaring in the Bakken, the biggest oil field discov- ered in the United States in four decades. They argue that they can- not afford to pay for pipelines and ,: processing phmts to capture and sell the gas until they actually drill oil wells and calculate how much gas will bubble out of the oil. And rein- jection of the carbon dioxide, com- monly done in conventional oil fields, is more difficult and expen- sive in less permeable shale fields. '"l'his tield covers 15,000 square miles, so it takes time to go and test what's there and then build a gather- The federal Environmental signs from drilling and other opera'- tions. "One day a regulator is going to say, 'I'm not going to give you one more pernfit until you tell me whN you are going to do with the gas,' v said Charif Souki, chief executivg of Cheniere Energy, who hopes tO eventually export the excess gas it~ liquefied form. Environmentalists are als° beginning to express alarm. "It~ time for the regulators to take a hard look at the impacts of flaring and make sure that available solutions to the flaring problem are required before there is any further wide- spread expansion of the practice'! said Amy Mall, senior policy anal, lyst at the Natural Resource Defense Council. Some of the com- panics working in North Dakota,: plunged since 2008 as vast shale including Whiting, are investing $3 billion over the next three years in fields laden with gas are tapped pip'elines and several large grpcess- through hydraulic fracturing and= ingt}lants to deliver gas to Midwest horizdntal drilling. Meanwhile, ,, markets rather than burn it. -" Whiting, a_Cpl0rado Cpmpan2 j With oil prices high amid strong global demand and leases as short as five years for land in the Bakken, drillers have found it more prof- itable to just grab the oil and burn the gas Building out the infrastruc- ture to handle gas would substan- tially raise coSts and slow develop- ment, and efforts so far to use the gas for electrical generation have had limited success because it con- tains components that burn too hot. "I'11 tell you why people flare: It's cheap," said Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum. "Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain." Although capturing the gas is the best option, scientists say that flaring is better for the environment than venting the gas into the atmos- phere. Pure natural gas is mostly methane, which has far greater heat- trapping qualities than carbon diox- ide. Regulations on flaring are loose in North Dakota, as they are in most states, and there are no current fed- eral regulations on flaring at oil and gas wells. That is largely because flaring has not been a significant concern since the 1970s, when the federal government insisted that oil companies re-inject gas into Alaska's North Slope rather than flare it. So far. North Dakota health offi- cials say that flaring has not pro- duced any serious air pollution problems. But flaring could eventu- ally become another environmental headache for an industry already under attack over concerns that hydraulic fracturing, also known as tracking, could jeopardize water quality. that was one of the early explorers in the Bakken, sees particular value in the gas found here because it con- tains large amounts of propane and butane that it can extract and sell at a profit in addition to the gas itself. The,,cgmpany is rapidly pand- ing oil drilling while building and expanding two plants to process its own gas as well as gas produced by others. Whiting was flaring 80 per- cent of the gas in its first major Bakken field in 2007, but says it has now reduced its flaring to 20 per- cent across all fields, which will fall further when its second gas plant comes online. "Our goal is to have zero emis- sions," said James T. Brown, Whiting's president and chief oper- ating officer. "It's a waste to be wasting all of this energy." While the projects by Whiting and others could reduce flaring over the next two years, some executives acknowledge that it will be a contin- uing problem as the industry increases the number of wells in the area from 5,000 tO a projected 48,000 over the next 20 years. Wayde Schafer, the Sierra Club's North Dakota conservation organizer, said that the industry needed to slow down development if it could not protect the air. "You can do it fast or you can do it right," he said. system and plant," said Harold " " " " "" arasPr°- i(~g Ha~;~'R;~ief~ceXecu~;f th; P;°~dCtin°:?gen:Yihsa~:::21nYd ; Contme t [ • " : " "' for fracked wells, and it has also bigeest oil producers in the Bakken. begun to ask oil companies to corn- ] L i backward for a domestic enerw The x~ ldespread f/a| mg is a step ' : ' " """:" pile data on greenhouse gas emis- [ I Billings County / Pioneer and Golden / ..... ....... ] ,1 Central Ave, Beach .]Valley News, 22 1 Lease ut to expire? / 75 cents each [ MBI- Co g: ffe , OJl and Gas, LLC 11 We will ship orders / vcill lease your mineral ir / by U.S. Mail, with an / ia~d~reStas~Tl~nDtana~'°ta / additional postage ] / charge, [ 872-3755 ] Joe Rothschiller, president, Steffes Corporation, Dickinson has been elected chair of the board of directors of the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce. Shannon McQuade-Ely, presi- dent, McQuade Distributing Co. Inc., Bismarck, was elected chair- elect. She will succeed Rothschiller as board chair next n fall. New members elected to the board are Tim Brumfield, Gate City Bank, Dickinson; Ed Iron, Director-Business Development & Sales, Dakota Growers Pasta Co., Carrington: John MacMartin, President, Minot Area Chamber of Commerce, Minot; Dave Molmen, Altru Health System, Grand Forks; ew John Phillips, Developmen,~ Director, Beulah JDA, Beulah; Debbie Richter, American Stat Bank, Williston. Weinreis on team t hoping for CNFR TORRINGTON, Wyo. The Eastern Wyoming College rodeo team continues a streak of winning and placing at this fall's rodeos. The team finished the weekend in third place at the annual rodeo hosted by Sheridan College. The women's team finished in seventh place. .In the steer wrestling, Troy Wilcox, sophomore from Red Owl, S.D., was third overall for the weekend and fellow teammate Tee Hale, freshman from White Owl, S.D., was eighth. The EWC team of Derek Weinreis, freshman from Golva, N.D., and partner Levi O'Keeffe, freshman, Mohall, N.D., brought home the win in the team roping with a total time of 15.2 seconds on two steers. The team travels to Lmnar, Colo., next for the rodeo hosted by Lamar Community College. The best coverage of the area's news, sports and community events! You'll find it here! • i Call 872-3755 to subs 'ribe t6day. and Tracked Excavators, Woods brand Implements, Modern brand Implements and Much, Much, More! KIOTI CK 20SH ............ a...,i...MSRP $17,983 ....... OU R PRICE ..... $14,755 KIOTI CK 35H (w/Ioader)..,,.MSRP $24,662 ....... OUR PRICE ..... $21,395 KIOTI DS4110HS....;....:i,.,...MSRP 525,493 ........ OUR PRICE.,...$22iO95 FREE DELIVERY to MT, ND, SD and lD Call us today to hear about our product lines AG SUPPLY, INC. 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