http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060402716.html?hpid=sec-nation
Gas spews for hours from out-of-control Pa. well
Washington Post
By MARC LEVY and JENNIFER C. YATES
The Associated Press
Friday, June 4, 2010; 4:55 PM
PENFIELD, Pa. — An out-of-control natural gas well in a remote area
of Pennsylvania shot explosive gas and polluted water as high as 75
feet into the air before crews were able to tame it more than half a
day later, officials said Friday.
The gas never caught fire and no injuries were reported, but state
officials worried about an explosion before the well could be
controlled. The well was brought under control just after noon Friday,
about 16 hours after it started spewing gas and brine, said Elizabeth
Ivers, a spokeswoman for driller EOG Resources Inc.
Pennsylvania, historically an insignificant source of natural gas, is
trying to adapt its laws to respond to a furious rush to tap a
gas-rich shale formation under its land. The blowout could test the
ability of state regulators, who promised an aggressive investigation
into the accident.
“The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident
that endangered life and property,” Department of Environmental
Protection Secretary John Hanger said in a statement. “This was not a
minor accident, but a serious incident that will be fully investigated
by this agency with the appropriate and necessary actions taken
quickly.”
If the agency finds that mistakes were made, it will take steps to
prevent similar errors from repeating, he said. He said it was too
early to tell the extent of any environmental damage.
Details about the accident were still sketchy, but the agency was told
that unexpectedly high gas pressure in the new well prevented the crew
from containing it, said Dan Spadoni, a spokesman for the Department
of Environmental Protection.
Ivers said she could not immediately respond to questions about how
the accident happened. Public safety and protection of the environment
are of the utmost importance, the company said in a statement.
David Rensink, the incoming president of the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists, said gas well blowouts are very rare and can be
very dangerous to control, since a spark can set off an explosion.
Typically, a blowout preventer – a series of valves that sit atop a
well – allows workers to control the pressure inside, he said.
Just such a device figured into the massive oil spill off the coast of
Louisiana. The oil rig’s blowout preventer was supposed to shut off
the flow of oil in the event of a catastrophic failure, but failed to
do so.
The Pennsylvania well is on the grounds of a hunting club in a heavily
forested section of Clearfield County, near Interstate 80 and about 90
miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Houston-based EOG, formerly part of Enron Corp., was drilling into the
Marcellus Shale reserve, a hotly pursued gas formation primarily under
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio that some geologists
believe could become the nation’s most productive natural gas field.
There are more than 1,000 Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania alone,
some of them within view of homes, farmhouses and public roads.
There were no homes within a mile of the well, and polluted drilling
water was prevented from reaching a waterway, said Spadoni, the
department spokesman.
On Friday afternoon, a worker blocked a dirt road to the site, while
trucks hauling water tanks streamed past him. He said he was not
allowed to talk about what had happened.
The crew accident happened just after the crew finished a process
called hydraulic fracturing – in which millions of gallons of water,
sand and chemicals are blasted underground to shatter tightly
compacted shale and release trapped natural gas. They were clearing
out debris from the well when gas shot out of it, Spadoni said.
Workers evacuated the site and contacted county authorities, said John
Sobel, a Clearfield County commissioner. The DEP said it wasn’t
notified until 1:30 a.m. – more than five hours after the blowout.
The polluted water flowing out of the well and into the woods was
stopped by a trench and a pump installed by a contractor, Spadoni
said. Companies that specialize in securing out-of-control wells were
called in, he said.
As a precaution, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a flight
restriction Friday morning, saying no planes below 1,000 feet should
go within three miles of the site. The restriction was lifted it
shortly after the well was capped.