Posted on 07/01/2014 5:42:42 PM PDT by shove_it
North Dakota regulators tell crude oil explorers to cut the flaring of natural gas or face limits on the amount of oil they can pump from the Bakken shale formation.The state's crude output has surpassed 1M bbl/day, behind only Texas, but while Texas captures all but 1% of the natural gas produced, North Dakota burns 30% of its output as waste as the rate of production has outstripped companies' ability to capture gas through pipeline connections at the source.The North Dakota Industrial Commission is aiming for a 26% reduction in gas flaring statewide by Q4 of this year and another 23% by Q1 2015.Top Bakken producers include CLR, EOG, KOG, WLL, HES, XOM, OAS, NOG, EOX, MRO.
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
See the following:
The industry is also working to expand existing natural gas gathering systems to avoid flaring with a preliminary goal of capturing 74 percent of the gas by the end of 2014 and ultimately capturing 90 to 95 percent by 2020.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3174530/posts
Kind of hard to move natural gas by train, so build the pipeline.
OK. Sounds good. (Produce the gas, transport the gas, sell the gas, use the energy in the gas.)
Now, WHO is going to require all those permits for the gas pipelines to be released immediately? There needed 10 years for a single trans-state electric line to get permissions to run from Ohio through WV to Virgina recently.
And Obama’s energy and EPA departments are refusing to pass the Keystone pipeline ....
For a quick fix, build a short pipeline to the ND State House for temporary storage of the natgas. These politicos impose these impossible deadlines with no concept of what it takes to meet them.
I get it, but I don’t think “flaring” is excess capacity, I may be wrong.
When a molecule of natural gas (Methane) is burned you get one molecule of CO@ and two molecules of WATER.
CH4 + 2 O2 ==> CO2 + 2 H20
Is it asking too much of the “Industrial Board” to require that at least one of them have some knowledge of Chemistry?
No way to do co-generation at the sites? Burn it in generators and get electrical energy as you do? Pollution is merely a resource out of place.
Warmism fears, perhaps? (The CO2)
No way to do co-generation at the sites? Burn it in generators and get electrical energy as you do? Pollution is merely a resource out of place.
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A lot of rigs in TX do this. That’s one of the reasons their flareoff is so much less.
And they badly need it in Texas for their airconditioning, so it is a win/win.
May as well put it to good use.
“A lot of rigs in TX do this. That’s one of the reasons their flareoff is so much less.”
What rigs are you talking about?
They’re not flaring because they want to, it’s because they have to until the pipeline infrastructure is in place to sell it.
“No way to do co-generation at the sites?”
Where are you going to go with the power generated?
Drill rigs and Frac rigs are all powered by big tractor-trailer size diesel generators, usually more than one.
This means a constant stream of diesel tankers coming and going.
But many of these generators are being converted to also run on flare natural gas where it’s available, usually on sites with multiple pads.
I’m familiar with the business, that gas would have to come from another well since the drilling rig and the frac crew is long gone before your flowback is completed and you actually start producing gas. I have several wells running AJAX motors and you have to scrub the fluids from the casing gas first, not that hard but it has to be done.
That’s why I said “sites with multiple pads.” My wife and I are RV’ers and we gate guard 3 or 4 months a year.
This past year we were at a ranch near Whitsett, TX with 3 pads in production, 3 being fracked, and 2 drill rigs in operation, as well as a tank farm. They were also bringing in a pipeline to connect it all up.
So, plenty of gas to go around.
Now that sounds like a pretty good job, I’ll be retiring in a couple of years.
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