Thanks for creating this site and allowing the discussion.

Mel,

10 years might not be long enough to know how things will turn out for your gas drilling experience. There is a long term problem with petroleum wells, be they for gas or oil.

Over time the wells leak.

Many wells — many leaks — and no way to fix them — long after a well may be profitable there can be and in too many cases will be dangerous and damaging.

Don’t take my word for it. Let the Society of Petroleum Engineers make the case.

Here’s a link to one presentation about leaks, partially quoted below, more can be found with little effort.

http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/servlet/onepetropreview?id=00064733

Publisher Society of Petroleum Engineers

Language English

Document ID 64733-MS DOI 10.2118/64733-MS

Content Type Conference Paper

Title Why Oilwells Leak: Cement Behavior and Long-Term Consequences

Authors Maurice B. Dusseault, Porous Media Research Institute, University of Waterloo; Malcolm N. Gray, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited; Pawel A. Nawrocki, CANMET

Source
International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in China, 7-10 November 2000, Beijing, China

ISBN 978-1-55563-907-5

Copyright Copyright 2000, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.

Preview

Abstract
Oil and gas wells can develop gas leaks along the casing years after production has ceased and the well has been plugged and abandoned (P&A). Explanatory mechanisms include channelling, poor cake removal, shrinkage, and high cement permeability. The reason is probably cement shrinkage that leads to circumferential fractures that are propagated upward by the slow accumulation of gas under pressure behind the casing. Assuming this hypothesis is robust, it must lead to better practice and better cement formulations

Introduction,

Environmental Issues

This discussion is necessarily superficial, given the complexity of the issue and attendant practical factors such as workability, density, set retardation, mud cake removal, entrainment of formation gas, shale sloughing, pumping rate, mix consistency, and so on. A conceptual model will be developed in this article to explain slow gas migration behind casing, but we deliberately leave aside for now the complex operational issues associated with cement placement and behavior.

In 1997, there were ∼35,000 inactive wells in Alberta alone, tens of thousands of abandoned and orphan wells1, plus tens of thousands of active wells. Wells are cased for environmental security and zonal isolation. In the Canadian heavy oil belt, it is common to use a single production casing string to surface (Figure 1); for deeper wells, additional casing strings may be necessary, and surface casing to isolate shallow unconsolidated sediments is required. As we will see, surface casings have little effect on gas migration, though they undoubtedly give more security against blowouts and protect shallow sediments from mud filtrate and pressurization.

To form hydraulic seals for conservation and to isolate deep strata from the surface to protect the atmosphere and shallow groundwater sources, casings are cemented using water-cement slurries. These are pumped down the casing, displacing drilling fluids from the casing-rock annulus, leaving a sheath of cement to set and harden (Figure 1). Casing and rock are prepared by careful conditioning using centralizers, mudcake scrapers, and so on. During placement, casing is rotated and moved to increase the sealing effectiveness of the cement grout. Recent techniques to enhance casing-rock-cement sealing may include vibrating the casing, partial cementation and annular filling using a small diameter tube.

Additives may be incorporated to alter properties, but Portland Class G (API rating) oil well cement forms the base of almost all oil well cements.2 Generally, slurries are placed at densities about 2.0 Mg/m3, but at such low densities will shrink and will be influenced by the elevated pressures (10-70 MPa) and temperatures (35 to >140°C) encountered at depth.

The consequences of cement shrinkage are non-trivial: in North America, there are literally tens of thousands of abandoned, inactive, or active oil and gas wells, including gas storage wells, that currently leak gas to surface. Much of this enters the atmosphere directly, contributing slightly to greenhouse effects. Some of the gas enters shallow aquifers, where traces of sulfurous compounds can render the water non-potable, or where the methane itself can generate unpleasant effects such as gas locking of household wells, or gas entering household systems to come out when taps are turned on.

more info on the link

Clearly I am not the one who misunderstands. I understand perfectly well, and have adequately responded, yet you either cannot, or will not, see the real point.

We are all aware that they cannot come in and put drills on your land, but as I wrote, it is the undermining of property that is the issue. They can put your land at risk by drilling under it. If you want to take the risk, that’s one thing, but if they do it without your permission, it’s wrong.

I’ll try one more time: We KNOW they can’t put drills on your land without your permission. BUT THEY CAN drill beneath your property without your permission. THAT is the point.

As I stated before, the money is not the point. Please process this.

Look at it this way; If someone took your car without your permission, but left you money for it, it would still be stealing, wouldn’t it?

I also liked “And, I also notice that the media makes it seem like ‘poison water’ is a given if you have drilling around you. This is not the case. There have been accidents, but compared to the thousands of wells that have been drilled, it is miniscule.”

Most accidents are covered up by the gas companies, who settle, but with gag-orders on the victims. You don’t have any idea how many accidents there are, or how big they are, because they never reach the media. You do understand that, right?

I’d trust the gas industry a lot more if it didn’t send liars (landmen) out to dupe ignorant landowners, and if they didn’t make secret back-room deals with Dick Cheney to avoid public scrutiny, or if they didn’t lobby to exempt themselves from The Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

You say they have “a lot” of regulation? Then how is it they got themselves exempted from EPA regulation?

You seem to take a lot of things on faith, just because people are getting money for it. That focus seems a bit myopic to me. I understand that your priority is the money. Good for you. Not everyone shares your priority, but unfortunately, everyone who undergoes mandatory inclusion has to live by it. That is just wrong.

You are apparently not in the unique position you think you are in. Plenty of people like to use their own anecdotal evidence to avoid seeing that other people have exactly the opposite experience than they do, but just choose to ignore it.

Please don’t just keep submitting the same argument again and again, OK?

The drilling company cannot exclude a landowner from receiving royalty checks simply because that landowner did not sign a lease. They can’t get your gas for free. That is what they mean by mandatory inclusion. The gas company can’t get away with not paying you, whether you sign a lease or not.

The company can extract gas from under your property if your neighbors have signed a lease. There is a certain percentage of an area that they must have under contract in order to employ ‘mandatory inclusion.’ They absolutely cannot place the drills (those giant rigs that stay up for 8 weeks or so) on your property unless you give them permission.

And, I also notice that the media makes it seem like ‘poison water’ is a given if you have drilling around you. This is not the case. There have been accidents, but compared to the thousands of wells that have been drilled, it is miniscule.

The “environmentalists” use the water thing to scare regular people who are new to drilling, and the left-leaning southern part of the state seems to get most of the media coverage.

I am in a unique position, as I have lived around drilling for many years (at least 10) and I am comfortable with the amount of regulation (a lot!) the industry employs. So far, no problems. I also own property in the western Catskills, so a land guy may come knocking fairly soon. I’m probably one of the few people with this perspective.

What it actually does is force us to have our land undermined (in the truest sense of the word) by drillers. Those drillers are not required by law to drill under our land (thus putting us at risk without our permission.)

“A drilling company cannot put a well on your land unless you give them permission,” is a false argument. The fact that the drilling company can drill a well beneath your land without your permission is the issue.

As far them sending checks – someone could send me a check for putting my daughter into slavery, but that doesn’t mean it’s right, either. I don’t want their money, I want them not to undermine my property, but in this case, as a home- and landowner, I have no rights.

I have neighbors who received checks in the mail from a gas company, because they were on the fringe of the pool. They had never signed a lease, and had no idea they were sitting on gas.

It’s not that the gas people force you to drill your land; they just have to pay you for the percentage of the gas that belongs to you.

A drilling company cannot put a well on your land unless you give them permission. The only persuasion is the fact that they give you a lot more in royalties if you allow it, and they wind up putting a well on your property.

Credentials? Really? Do I have to work for the industry to be able to have an opinion? I basically base my argument on “is this true on not” and don’t really care about credentials. Plenty of shills for natural gas have credentials. “Credentials” is a false argument, Kevin. Show me where I was wrong in a specific case. (Actually, don’t. Only one comment per insulter.)

No one says gas companies WANT to to harm anything. It’s just that profits often come before consideration of the environment. You know that has been true in many instances. (Well, I’m sure BP always put the environment first…LOL.)

Can’t attack the chemical industry? Have you even seen the backlash against Monsanto? Where have you been?

Of course money makes people independent and free-thinking. And smoking makes you healthy, and gas is good for the environment, and Paul McCartney is dead. Socrates, the Buddha, Jesus.. those guys were just loaded with scratch.

Money is independent of thought. There are some free-thinking rich people, there are some free-thinking poor people, and plenty in the middle. Too bad you are under the impression that you are one of them.

Leave other people to make their own choices? As in “mandatory inclusion?” Know what that is? It’s not that I mind when people pee where they want, but when they do it in a public pool and insist on their right to pee in their corner, that’s not liberty, that’s ignorant selfishness.

Now we each have gotten our turns. Please don’t bother me anymore.