Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

solarvic · April 2012

Tonight I went to a landowners group meeting on utica shale drilling. a few facts I can share. There is 3 times more oil in Northwestern Pa than Saudia Arabia has. The boom will be bigger than when They discovered oil in Texas. A 100 acre farm will produce 5 to 10 million Dollars. All the big oil companys are moving in. A landowners group joins all thier land in one big parcel so they can get more money and higher royalty payments. BP just leased 68,000 acres to a landowners group in Ohio for $3950.00 per acre with rolaty payments of 17.5%. That is in countys that border Mercer county In Pa. They figure there will be drilling in this area for 70 years. And I got 40 acres in the middle of it. :Dsolarvic:D Since I am already locked into an old lease I won,t get the big signup bonus and will only get 12.5% rolalty payments if I get a well. So if you are a landowner don,t sign the lease on your own. Better to join a landowners group.

westbranch · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

I don't want this to sound political, I haven't made up my mind either way, still of 2 minds, but there are a lot of impacts to the 'FRACKING' that has to be done to get the Shale to release its hidden treasure. Lots to read. Google BC and 'Fracking'

solarvic · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

Yes it seems that getting any kind of energy has a certain risk. Nucular can have a melt down. Wind turbines can fall, gasoline trucks have accidents and fires but you still want your gasoline for youe cars. I personally think fracking is blown out of perportion. Worst ingredient is muratic acid and or or sulfuric acid. I already have a gas well just a little over 300 ft. from my house. It was fracked and never hurt my water. Between Canada and the us we could thumb our noses up to the countrys that are ripping us off and provide our own oil. Wouldn,t have to fight all these wars over oil and keep the money in our own countrys. DRILL BABY DRILL!! This is not to be taken as pol;itical. solarvic

icarus · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

Watching carefully to the distant roar of politics.

Be aware,

Tony (wearing Mod hat!)

BB. · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

Hopefully, further testing/research will address how hazardous Fracking is:

posted~4/1/2012
The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking water in Texas, the third time in recent months that the agency has backtracked on high-profile local allegations linking natural-gas drilling and water pollution.

On Friday, the agency told a federal judge it withdrew an administrative order that alleged Range Resources Corp. had polluted water wells in a rural Texas county west of Fort Worth. Under an agreement filed in U.S. court in Dallas, the EPA will also drop the lawsuit it filed in January 2011 against Range, and Range will end its appeal of the administrative order.

In addition to dropping the case in Texas, the EPA has agreed to substantial retesting of water in Wyoming after its methods were questioned. And in Pennsylvania, it has angered state officials by conducting its own analysis of well water—only to confirm the state’s finding that water once tainted by gas was safe....

-Bill "good luck!" B.

solarvic · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

Trying not to have a politacal statement. Most fracking problems come from someones errors or judgement. If someone doesn,t do thier job right there could be problems. I feel if an energy company does ruin someones water that they should be acountable and provide a remedy to everyone that is involved. The enviromental rules are bieing updated and strengthened to stop the poluters which is good. So far I don,t have any water problems with the water in my well but do question myself sometimes on the location where the well was drilled and wonder now if they would be allowed to drill there now. There is a lot of swamp land behind my house and they basically put some fill dirt in the swamp so they had a drill site. What happened is the swamp water moved out to a different area in my woods and a few trees died right by the power line that runs thru my woods. One reason I have so many power outages is the trees fall on the power line now and have broken the power line more than once. It hasn,t seemed to hurt the swamp creatures too much as the peepers are still there in the spring. Some of you might not live near any swamps but I think there isn,t anything better than hearing the peepers in the spring. Good sign for spring coming. Old saying is the peepers get froze 3 times and spring has arrived. :Dsolarvic:D

icarus · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

My issue with fracking is the largely unknown chemical stew injected into the rock, where the potential to interact with essential ground water. Huge swaths of the country are dependent on ground water for domestic water sources, and in the net, which is more valuable?

Nothing is ever easy, or "free". I consider natural gas a great bridge fuel as we move out of oil, both because of potential peak oil issues, as well as CO2 reduction strategies. That said, I would always err on the side of caution, and at the very least, understnd the risk(s) before we go forward.

I will try to follow my on warning and not get into this further.

Tony

niel · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

solarvic,
is this oil sitting at a different level than what the original oil pool was? is this oil the same quality as the original oil pool was? i should note to everyone that oil is still being pumped from that oil pool and it is some of the finest oil in the world. even the natural gas from the area is of high quality, but has fracking for it changed it in any way?

how about the geological impacts due to fracking with the destabilizing of the ground creating small earthquakes?

solarvic · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

They showed a slide show on how a well is drilled and frackured. It is very interesting and informitive. Most water problems were caused by someone not doing thier job correctly. On each drilling rig there is suposed to be a geoligist that monitors all the drilling and cementing in of the well. They start with a 24 inch casing thru most of the water table, plug the end and put a smaller dia pipe inside of the 28 inch pipe and pump cement into the wall between the 2 pipes. Then they drill thru the end plug on the end much deeper under the water table and do the same thing previously explained. Then they use 6 inch dia well pipe after they seal that off and drill to they are horizontal in the layer of shale they want to fracture up to a length of 1000 ft. Each drilling site could have 8 wells After they get the pipe drilled into the horizontal position they plug the end. Then they send an electrical aparatus into the horizontal pipe that blows holes in the pipe. After that the fraquing crew comes and pumps sand, water, and some other things in there that is used everyday. 2 worst components is muratic acid, and sulfuric acid which is to treat the pipe so it wont rust. Cost 5 million to drill well and 3 million to frak It is suposed to be high quality oil. Even the little guy can get leased as they need 640 acre blocks and have to pay everyone that is in the square. Told a story about this farm north of pittsburgh that they wanted to drill on. At the end of the farm there was a housing developement on top of the mountain where they wanted to drill under. Everyone that lives in the housing developement got a lease payment and gets 17.5% royalty payments. Niel Most of the stuff they use for fracking comes back up to the ground after the fracking. They burn the flare off for a couple of days before they put it in the pipeline. The fracking crumbles up some of the shale formation so it can release the oil and gas.
reason they are drilling the utica shale in northwestern pa and North eastern ohio is the utica shale is only 6000 ft. below the surface and is more valuable. We have some marcelous shale here but it isn,t as profitable as down by pittsburg and farther east in Pa. They have utica shale in the area where they drilled the marcelous shale but it is so deep that the good stuff has cooked off. I heard that utica shale is about 13,0000ft. below the surface in that area. At present Natural gas is so low that they stopped drilling the marcelous shale as it has mostly dry gas. The Utica shale has more other products that are worth much more than the natural gas. The components from the wet gas is used in anti freeze, plastics, fertilizer and has lots of oil. i try not to get too excited about getting a utica shale well as I am already 67 and they say they will be drilling for 70 or 80 years in this area. Hope this didn,t bore too many people All for this post.

mikeo · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

Again, not to be political, but my experience in the Fayetteville shale play in Arkansas is that fracking has not created too many problems. The bigger problem has been the dispersion wells where they dispose of the fracking fluids. These have caused magitude 4+ earthquakes that have damaged property. I have felt them at my house approximately 50 mile to the north. I have heard of a few complaints of wells being compromised but have no direct experience with this.

NorTracNY · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

solarvic wrote: »

Trying not to have a politacal statement. Most fracking problems come from someones errors or judgement. If someone doesn,t do thier job right there could be problems. I feel if an energy company does ruin someones water that they should be acountable and provide a remedy to everyone that is involved. :Dsolarvic:D

Be aware that there are laws on the books that have it so the energy companies will not be held accountable. That's my only problem with Fracking.

icarus · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

My one real problem with fracking is the proprietary nature of many of the chemicals that are used. Since we don't actually know what they are, it is hard to make a judgement as to the safety. I would prefer transparency. (See also the Haliburton "exemption")

I do however think that Nat. Gas is a much cleaner alternative to coal,, in the net/net.

Tony

ggunn · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

solarvic wrote: »

Between Canada and the us we could thumb our noses up to the countrys that are ripping us off and provide our own oil. Wouldn,t have to fight all these wars over oil and keep the money in our own countrys.

Unfortunately that is not how the oil market works. No matter where oil is extracted it goes into the global oil market. Whether it is physically retained in the country where it was discovered or gets shipped somewhere else depends on the market. That's not to say that finding more oil here wouldn't be a good thing, but the price and availability of oil depends on worldwide supply and market speculators. Also, whether or not there is more oil in Pennsylvania than in Saudi Arabia (which sounds like a bit of an outlandish claim to me) is by itself not all that significant. One must also factor in what it costs to extract that oil and refine it.

Of course, the irony does not escape me that planes that fly over middle eastern countries dropping bombs could very well be burning fuel made from oil purchased from those very same countries. It's a weird world we live in.

solarvic · April 2012

Re: Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

There is a lot of different shale plays in the US and Canada. The map that they showed at the meeting I went to was the biggest and covers the most area. The Utica shale play is in North western W.VA. eastern Ohio, Eastern NY and southern ontario in Canada. I think it might strech into Quebec but not sure. It isn,t small potatoes. If any of you live where they might have this make sure you don,t sell out for small potatoes. Join a landowners group. I only got $10.00 per acre lease and 12.5 % rolality payments when I signed a lease for a conventional gas well. Once you have a well in production the leaseholder can hold your lease as long as they pay you at least 1 royality payment per year. My brother got a 13 dollar royality payment this year even though his well is nearly depleted. His neighbor who wasn,t leased got $3600.00 lease payment per acre for 5 years and if they drill he will get 17.5% rolality. If my brother gets in the same block he wom,t receive any of the big lease payments and he will only get the 12.5% rolality payment. Same goes for me. The neighbor that joins me isn,t leased either. The gas co that has my lease offered him $25.00 per acre. He turned that down and joined a landowners group. The landowners group is in negotiations with one of the big oil co and asking $4000.00 per acre and 18% royality. :Dsolarvic:D

Utica Shale drilling in Northwest Pa.

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