The United States National Science Foundation, engaging 29 researchers at nine institutions, has funded a Sustainability Research Network (SRN) focused on natural gas development. The mission of this Sustainability Research Network is to provide a logical, science-based framework for evaluating the environmental, economic, and social trade-offs between development of natural gas resources and protection of water and air resources and to convey the results of these evaluations to the public in a way that improves the development of policies and regulations governing natural gas and oil development.Currently, there are a wide range of estimates of the probability of shallow aquifer contamination. There are a series of independent events that must occur to allow hydrocarbon migration and estimates were made of these probabilities. An analysis of data from drilling in the Wattenberg field, CO was made to quantify the probability of contamination.It has been determined that there are five events that must each independently happen to allow the migration of fracturing fluids, and there are three events that must occur independently for the migration of hydrocarbons. The lower number of independent events, which must arise for hydrocarbon migration to occur, explains the infrequent, but well publicized natural gas migrations in poorly constructed wellbores, and the lack of such publicized events of hydraulic fracturing fluid contamination, which was confirmed by our analysis.The significance of these results is to help quantify the risks associated with natural gas development, as related to the contamination of surface aquifers. These results will help shape the discussion of the risks of natural gas development and will assist in identifying areas of improved well construction and hydraulic fracturing practices to minimize risk.
The United States National Science Foundation has funded a Sustainability Research Network (SRN) focused on natural gas development in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The objective of this specific study is the assessment of the use of existing water wells to monitor the risk of the contamination by the migration of fracturing fluids or hydrocarbons to fresh water aquifers. An additional objective of the study is to modify existing risk estimates using the spacial relationships between the existing water wells and producing oil wells. This will allow estimates of single barrier failure and multiple barrier failure resulting in contamination to be projected for oil and gas wells in areas without surrounding water wells to detect migration, based on well construction type. Since 1970, the Wattenberg Field in Colorado has a large number of oil and gas wells drilled. These wells are interspaced tightly with agricultural and urban development from the nearby Denver Metropolitan area. This provides a setting with numerous water wells that have been drilled within this area of active petroleum development. Data from 17,948 wells drilled was collected and analyzed in the Wattenberg field, allowing wells to be classified by construction type and analyzed for barrier failure and source of aquifer contamination. The assessment confirms that while natural gas migration has occurred in poorly constructed wellbores is infrequent, it can happen and that the migration risk is determined by the well construction standards. The assessment also confirms that there has been no occurrence of hydraulic fracturing fluid contamination of fresh water aquifers through wellbores. The assessment determines both the spacial proximity of oil and gas wells and surface casing depth to water wells to determine the utility of water wells to monitor migration in oil wells.
The United States National Science Foundation has funded a Sustainability Research Network (SRN) focused on natural gas development in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The mission of this SRN is to provide a logical, science- based framework for evaluating the environmental, economic, and social trade-offs between development of natural gas resources and protection of water and air resources and to convey the results of these evaluations to the public in a way that improves the development of policies and regulations governing natural gas and oil development. In a previous paper (Fleckenstein et al 2015), the risk of shallow aquifer contamination was examined for the Denver-Julesburg Basin in Colorado, specifically for the largest field in the basin, the Wattenberg Field. Similar methods were used to assess the risk of wellbore failure leading to fresh water aquafer contamination for the Piceance, Raton, and San Juan Basins in Colorado. Wellbore construction methods, especially casing and cementing practices for the protection of fresh water aquifers, have been reviewed in these three basins. The wells in the three basins were classified based on coverage of water and hydrocarbon zones as well as age. The assessment confirms that natural gas migration occurs infrequently, but can happen from poorly constructed wellbores. There has been no occurrence of hydraulic fracturing fluid contamination, which was confirmed by our analysis. The significance of these results is to help quantify the risks associated with natural gas development, as related to the contamination of surface aquifers. These results are helping to shape the discussion of the risks of natural gas development and will assist in identifying areas of improved well construction and hydraulic fracturing practices to minimize risk.
Summary The United States National Science Foundation has funded a sustainability-research network focused on natural-gas development in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The objective of this specific study is the assessment of the use of existing water wells to monitor the risk of contamination by the migration of fracturing fluids or hydrocarbons to freshwater aquifers. An additional objective of the study is to modify existing risk estimates using the spatial relationships between the existing water wells and producing oil wells. This will allow estimates of single-barrier failure and multiple-barrier failure, resulting in contamination projections for oil and gas wells in areas without surrounding water wells to detect migration, dependent on well-construction type. Since 1970, the Wattenberg Field in Colorado has had a large number of oil and gas wells drilled. These wells are interspaced tightly with agricultural and urban development from the nearby Denver metropolitan area. This provides a setting with numerous water wells that have been drilled within this area of active petroleum development. Data from 17,948 wells drilled were collected and analyzed in Wattenberg Field, allowing wells to be classified by construction type and analyzed for barrier failure and source of aquifer contamination. The assessment confirms that although natural-gas migration occurring in poorly constructed wellbores is infrequent, it can happen, and the migration risk is determined by the well-construction standards. The assessment also confirms that there has been no occurrence of hydraulic-fracturing-fluid contamination of freshwater aquifers through wellbores. The assessment determines both the spatial proximity of oil and gas wells and surface-casing depth to water wells to then determine the utility of water wells to monitor migration in oil wells.
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