last week i put together a quick post on oil well flaring in N Dakota and Texas… those of you who are getting fracked for gas in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York will be dismayed to see that they are burning off such gas in the West as a waste byproduct of oil production, at the rate of more than 100 million cubic feet per day in N Dakota alone, enough to heat a city of 1/2 million; got gas? oil well flaring as seen from spaceincludes satellite photos, videos and sound effects, along with a short explanation…
I’m curious to know what explanation for this seemingly huge waste of potential energy fuel is given by the industry? Given the substantial effort and cost to crack up the shale to release gas one might think that saving the “waste gas” would make a lot of sense.
Jack, the article from the oil & gas journal i linked to explains the reason that the Bakken gas is being flared instead of captured is that building the infrastructure would have delayed oil exploitation by 2 years… unfortunately, using my link requests that one sign in; however, you can view the article by accessing it from google by searching for “Restricting North Dakota gas-flaring would delay oil output, impose costs“
quoting the cited article:
The Bakken is said to yield 6-12 gal of NGLs per thousand cubic feet of natural gas. This makes it one of the richer gas plays in the US. The cost of flaring thus is greater in North Dakota’s Bakken than in other plays (Table 2).
The value of these NGLs varies according to the market but can easily add $6-12/bbl of oil if captured and processed. This is a strong incentive to the oil producer faced with transportation discounts that lower wellhead values of North Dakota crude oil because of distance to major refining centers.
last week i put together a quick post on oil well flaring in N Dakota and Texas…
those of you who are getting fracked for gas in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York will be dismayed to see that they are burning off such gas in the West as a waste byproduct of oil production, at the rate of more than 100 million cubic feet per day in N Dakota alone, enough to heat a city of 1/2 million; got gas? oil well flaring as seen from space includes satellite photos, videos and sound effects, along with a short explanation…
Also see this reminder on shale oil projections
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/12/future_producti.html
yeah dan…
seems that ive seen that third chart in Dr Hamilton’s post someplace else before..
I’m curious to know what explanation for this seemingly huge waste of potential energy fuel is given by the industry? Given the substantial effort and cost to crack up the shale to release gas one might think that saving the “waste gas” would make a lot of sense.
Jack, the article from the oil & gas journal i linked to explains the reason that the Bakken gas is being flared instead of captured is that building the infrastructure would have delayed oil exploitation by 2 years…
unfortunately, using my link requests that one sign in; however, you can view the article by accessing it from google by searching for “Restricting North Dakota gas-flaring would delay oil output, impose costs“
quoting the cited article:
The Bakken is said to yield 6-12 gal of NGLs per thousand cubic feet of natural gas. This makes it one of the richer gas plays in the US. The cost of flaring thus is greater in North Dakota’s Bakken than in other plays (Table 2).
The value of these NGLs varies according to the market but can easily add $6-12/bbl of oil if captured and processed. This is a strong incentive to the oil producer faced with transportation discounts that lower wellhead values of North Dakota crude oil because of distance to major refining centers.