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A Dam(n) Big Fracking Problem

December 23, 2017

A Dam(n) Big Fracking Problem

Regulators left behind as industry built dozens of unauthorized dams — many at risk of failure.

FrackingDamWarningSign.jpg
The province’s Environmental Assessment Office has ordered Progress Energy to drain almost all water from this seven-storey dam, built without required approvals. The company is now seeking a retroactive exemption from the assessment process. Photo by Ben Parfitt.

More than half of 48 dams that oil and gas companies built in recent years without first obtaining the proper permits had serious structural problems that could have caused many to fail.

And now, the BC Oil and Gas Commission, which appeared to be asleep at the switch in allowing the unlicensed dams to be built in the first place, is frantically trying to figure out what to do about them after the fact.

Information about the unprecedented, unregulated dam-building spree is contained in a raft of documents that the commission released in response to freedom of information requests filed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The documents obtained by the CCPA, along with other materials recently posted on the OGC’s website, reveal that 28 of at least 48 unlicensed dams on Crown (meaning public) lands had significant structural flaws or other problems belatedly identified by commission staff.

All the dams were built to trap fresh water used by energy companies drilling and fracking for gas in northeast B.C. In some fracking operations in the region, companies are pressure-pumping the equivalent of 64 Olympic-size swimming pools of water underground to break open gas-bearing rock formations, triggering earthquakes in the process.

The OGC paved the way for the construction of the dams by granting companies numerous permits under the Land Act to use public lands to “store water.”

But in approving the applications, commission personnel failed to ask basic, critical questions: How did companies intend to store the water? In tanks? In pits? Behind dams?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C.

August 26, 2015

Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C.

Quake one of world’s largest ever triggered by hydraulic fracturing

Fracking triggered a 4.4-magnitude earthquake in northeastern B.C. last year, CBC News has learned, making it one of world’s largest earthquakes ever triggered by the controversial process.

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission confirmed the cause of the earthquake in an email statement to CBC this week, saying it was “triggered by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing.”

The 4.4-magnitude quake was felt in Fort St. John and Fort Nelson in August 2014. It was preceded by a 3.8-magnitude earthquake in late July, also caused by fracking.

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission told CBC that several companies were doing hydraulic fracturing in the area at the time, and several more were disposing of fracking waste.

But the commission says it was Progress Energy’s operations that were “associated with triggering this event.”

Hydraulic fracturing, often called fracking, is the process of injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure deep underground to break rock and free gas.

Since the 2014 earthquake, Progress Energy has been ordered to reduce the volume of fracking fluid being used, and the company has complied, according to the commission.

As well, new seismic equipment has been set up in the area. No new earthquakes have been detected in the immediate area.

Sign of things to come?

Progress Energy is owned by Petronas of Malaysia, which also owns Pacific NorthWest LNG, the firm planning to build a giant liquefied natural gas export facility near Prince Rupert, B.C. supplied by gas fracked in northeastern B.C.

 

Matt Horn, with clean energy advocate the Pembina Institute, calls the significant earthquake “another warning sign for what could be down the road.

“If B.C. goes down the LNG road in a big way, it’s really important when we’re debating LNG proposals, we’re eyes wide open…. to both the benefits and impacts. Increased earthquakes is one of those impacts.”

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission declined a taped interview, providing only background information by email.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Another Industry Reported Quake in BC’s Fracking Grounds


August 21, 2015

Another Industry Reported Quake in BC’s Fracking Grounds


Regulator says tremor likely industry-caused, but company says it’s too soon to say.

Progress Energy, an arm of the Malaysian oil company Petronas, temporarily shut down operations at a wellsite after a 4.5 magnitude earthquake hit an area 114 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John on Aug. 17.

B.C.’s oil and gas regulator said the earthquake was likely caused by hydraulic fracturing but “has yet to determine the cause of the event.” Progress Energy reported the tremor on Monday. No damages were reported to the regulator.

“The Commission is working to obtain a reasonable event depth from local seismic-monitoring data and is collecting more information about the event as part of its investigation,” B.C. Oil and Gas Commission spokesman Allan Clay told The Tyee.

David Sterna, Progress Energy’s director of external affairs, said the company has since resumed operations with approval from the regulator, and that “despite certain media speculation, it is too early to determine whether Monday’s seismic activity was a natural occurrence or related to hydraulic fracturing activities.”

The epicentre of the earthquake occurred three kilometers from a site where Progress Energy was conducting a multi-stage frack into the Montney Shale, a large swath of land stretching across northeast B.C. into northwest Alberta.

In B.C., any fracking operation that measures a magnitude 4.0 tremor or greater within a three kilometre radius of the drilling pad must report the event to the regulator and suspend operations. Alberta operates a similar “traffic light” system for earthquakes in the Duvernay Shale around Fox Creek, Alberta.

That region, which has experienced industry-made quakes for two years, saw a 2.6 tremor in early August.

The shale gas industry injects fluids and sand at high pressure into deep and shallow wells to crack open difficult oil and gas deposits. The injections create a network of cracks that can also connect to water zones, other industry wellsites and faults.

The reactivation of these faults can then trigger an earthquake, sometimes days after the fracture treatment, scientists say.

 

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

BC Natural Gas Reserves Inflated, Revenues Overstated, Report Finds

May 29, 2015

BC Natural Gas Reserves Inflated, Revenues Overstated, Report Finds

Analyst David Hughes offers another challenge to the province’s nascent industry.

A new report on liquefied natural gas prospects for British Columbia challenges government claims that gas exports will lower greenhouse gas emissions, or generate $100 billion in profits for the province.

The report published today by David Hughes, one of Canada’s foremost energy analysts and a former federal government geoscientist, also contends that the provincial government has vastly overestimated the amount of gas available for export.

The National Energy Board has approved 12 export licences to Asia or the United States with another seven under review along the B.C. coast.* The provincial government, which has lowered taxes and royalties to promote the new industry, expects only three to five terminals may be eventually built.

Due to depressed oil prices, global competition and cost over-runs in the capital intensive industry, not one project has yet announced a final investment decision.

Government fact sheets claim, for example, that “British Columbia’s natural gas supply is estimated at over 2,933 trillion cubic feet,” or enough gas to last 150 years.

But Hughes notes the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission estimates raw gas reserves (gas that can be drilled and recovered based on existing economics and well data) for the province at 42.3 trillion cubic feet.

 

The commission calculates “marketable resources,” or what industry might be able to find, drill and frack — a highly uncertain figure, due to high decline rates and the spotty nature of unconventional shale resources — at 442 trillion cubic feet.

As a result, Hughes calls the government’s inflated figure of 2,933 trillion cubic feet, or 70 times more than proven reserves listed by the commission, “a false and irresponsible statement.”

Windfall profits questioned

Government claims about earning windfall profits from gas exports also have no basis in real economics, Hughes argues in his report.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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