Speech to Scottish Energy Association, March 10th 2016

Ladies and Gentlemen.  Thank you for inviting me to speak today. 

My name is Martin Veart.  I am standing on behalf of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the Constituency of Edinburgh Northern and Leith.  Currently I am working with ICOE Research on their upcoming publication Offshore Oil & Gas Operations: Environment, Health and Safety.  Prior to this, I have more than 20 years experience in offshore oil and gas.

Scotland needs a government which will invest in 21^st Century infrastructure.  Infrastructure that helps us beat our climate change targets, creates warmer homes, reduces air pollution and strengthens our economy.

For Liberal Democrats, this literally begins at home.  At our recent conference we addressed the issue of fuel poverty.  Both in rural areas of Scotland and in much of the existing housing stock in our cities, there is too much of the nation’s homes that is still poorly insulated, resulting in fuel poverty for many.  We will reduce this through better planning for district heating and renewable energy technology in new social housing, as well as improving the energy efficiency of existing homes, as part of a national infrastructure project.

Renewables are the key to Scotland’s energy future and reducing global greenhouse emissions are a key part of the planet’s future.  

While in government, Liberal Democrats have so often set the pace on renewables and low-carbon technologies. 

In the early years of the Scottish Parliament, we established the first ever renewable electricity targets, setting the groundwork for green investment and jobs.

It was Liberal Democrats in the UK Government who established the Green Investment Bank, based in Edinburgh, paving the way for Carbon Capture and Storage and established the Green Deal.

After the breakthrough climate change talks in Paris, the renewables sector should be thriving.  It should be set for unprecedented levels of support from government.  We should be seeing new action from both the Westminster and  Scotland’s governments. 

Instead, the UK Government has cut off the renewable sector at the knees; driven by ideological attachment to the free market and in pursuit of short-sighted, short-term savings.

Since last summer, the Tories have cut the DECC budget by 22%.

They scrapped the £1 billion groundbreaking Carbon Capture project planned for Peterhead and gone are the associated scientific and innovation benefits. 

Scrapped too is the Green Deal.

The Tories have cut £130 million from the solar and wind budget, with the result of thousands of job losses.  Even worse, there has been a massive blow to investor confidence, job creation, energy security and our nation’s low-carbon ambitions.

And we have a Scottish Government that, days after Paris, cut the climate change budget by £50 million, including £40 million from the green energy budget.  That is 10% and once again we see the SNP talk about investment while following Conservative cuts.

So what would we do?

Liberal Democrats are committed to having 100% of Scotland’s electrical energy generated from renewable sources.   While part of the UK government, we ensured an average investment in the sector of £7 billion per year: nearly as much as the oil companies were annually investing in the North Sea during the same period.  No other party can match that record.

Liberal Democrats also understands that reliance upon renewables makes difficulties for major energy suppliers to plan and invest during the transition period to renewable energy.  That is why we appreciate the need for ceiling and floor tariffs, governed by Offgem, so that energy operators have secure boundaries within which to plan and invest.

Another avenue Liberal Democrats are keen to explore is renewable heating.  Currently only 2% of UK heating demand are met by low-carbon sources.  In Scotland the figure for renewable heating is slightly higher: 3%.  Our nation's target by 2030 is 40% so have a long way to go on this. 

This morning, I looked at the UK electric generation and the percentage breakdowns are this:

Coal: 16.5     Nuclear: 17.6             CCGT       46.6

Wind 6.0       Hydro  0.4                 Biomass 5.0               Via Interconnect: 8.0

This shows that while politicians talk about renewables, what we have to cope with at this time is a very different mix.

I’ll take nuclear first.  It does not look what is happening at Hinkley-C will act as any form of model to encourage further investment from the private sector.   The original Conservative government pledge was to have 16 such power stations operational by 2030.  That is not going to happen, but I believe there is the political will to go ahead with Hinkley-C, regardless of cost.  One just hopes EDF, having being awarded the contract, can survive its good fortune.

Willie Rennie, leader of the Liberal Democrats, supports the recent announcement to keep Torness open, purely upon a pragmatic basis.  He goes on to point out that with the SNP firmly opposed to nuclear and the Conservatives wrecking the renewables budget, an impasse has been reached.   The two governments need a joint plan but they are showing no signs of developing one.

 Offshore oil and gas is currently in a terrible state owing to the oil price crash.  Job losses are probably over 100,000 if one takes total UK jobs into account.  The price of Brent crude has just managed to bounce up the $40 per barrel this week but still, this is not high enough to support the industry in the long term.  Investment in the offshore sector has plunged from an average of £8 billion per annum to less than £1 billion for 2016. 

 

This was the picture just two years ago, prior to the Scottish referendum. 

I put this up as a warning against politicians, like me, who may stand in front of you and claim to have a crystal ball in which the future is golden.  Sometimes it isn’t.

But of the two competing claims up there, which one would you have considered the more reasonable?  I know, hindsight is a wonderful thing.  Few people saw this particular oil-price crash coming. 

But out of the two claims, I went with the OBR and here’s why:

As you can see, this is the annual UK oil and gas production for the past twenty years.   The trend is only in one direction.  Even when the oil price peaked at over $140 a barrel during 2010, the fall in production figures could not be reversed.  In 2015 there is a welcome rise in production of 9.7%: this is what some in the SNP call “an oil boom” but this graph puts things into their proper perspective.

The reality is that production levels, when compared to their peak in late 1990s, both gas and oil have fallen by over 70%. 

The futures oil price for December 2018 is still not expected to break $50 dollars a barrel.   Despite the drastic cost cutting which is still underway by the North Sea operators, the industry has a very uncertain future. 

Liberal Democrats support the current round of tax equalisation measures to bring the offshore oil and gas taxation regimes more in line with other business sectors.  We also support companies’ access to data sources, as laid out in the OGA Corporate Plan published yesterday. 

That leaves us in Scotland and the rest of the UK with hard choices to make.  We are still far from having an infrastructure that can do without oil and gas.  Even with best efforts, it will take more than twenty years wean the Scottish economy off fossil fuels. 

 So, what is to be done?  Import or frack?

As you may have heard, we in the Scottish Liberal Democrats have been recently discussing this matter.  I was talking to Willie Rennie over the weekend and we can agree that as Liberal Democrats we respect each other’s position and both sides share the desire to see CO2 emissions drop as quickly as possible.  The debate is ongoing and I am sure you will have questions after.

This is an energy comparison between fossil fuel types and taking into account their sources.  

As one can instantly see, in terms of CO2 release, coal has to go and it is right that it is being phased out.

Shale gas actually compares quite favourably with gas either imported by pipeline from outside the EU, or by tanker in the form of LNG.  This is one of the factors why I am personally in favour of fracking.

Ultimately the decision should be with the public and local government during the planning stage.  I believe companies should have the right to put the case for fracking, within a tight regulatory framework and with independent assessment of the evidence.

In summary: the Liberal Democrats have an excellent track record of being a practical and progressive partner, whether in providing people with warmer homes, seeking new opportunities for industry, or with coalition partners in striving towards a better Scotland.  When Liberal Democrats are in government, people know they will receive a fair and considered hearing.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time.

Libdems and Fracking

The article below first appeared in Libdem Voice, 5th March 2016, in a slightly shorter format.

It seems that there is widespread misunderstanding among the federal party members as to why we here in Scotland decided to end the current moratorium we had on fracking and other non-conventional extraction of hydrocarbons.

Introduced in 2013, the Scottish moratorium on fracking was, as far as one understands it, based upon awaiting further evidence.  The following year, such evidence actually came to light in the form of the Scottish Government's 2014 report: Independent Expert Scientific Panel - Unconventional Oil and Gas.   http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00456579.pdf
The report is comprehensive: addressing as it does both the environmental and public concerns.  It comes to the conclusion that, with proper oversight, public consultation and tight planning restrictions, that it is possible to exploit the United Kingdom's potential for future hydrocarbon exploitation.

It was upon the basis of this report that Ewan Hoyle of Glasgow put forward his amendment to end the moratorium on fracking.  At conference, I spoke in support of the amendment on the current state of the industry.  With the oil price currently around $36 a barrel, the North Sea offshore industry has already shed over 70,000 jobs, with the associated knock-on effects throughout the economy.

Ewan also outlined the costs of importing oil and gas abroad, outlining the additional carbon cost of shipping.  I would like to expand upon this point.

The graph comes from the report Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Shale Gas Extraction and Use, published in 2013.  It shows that shale gas compares favourably with both non-EU gas imported by pipeline and LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) which is the method of importation by tanker.

As an aside, I recently read Norman Baker's biography Against The Grain.  While in government he came forward with the idea of comparing the different forms of oil, gas and coal imports according to their CO2 signatures.  This would have been an extremely good way of helping non-experts (pretty much all of us) when it comes to question whether to import or produce hydrocarbons at home.  Naturally his idea was not accepted by our partners in Coalition

As Liberal Democrats, we can be united in wanting to see the end of global dependency on fossil fuels.  The fact that the UK will still be dependent upon them for the next fifteen to twenty five years has to be addressed.  The issues are not simple.

I want to add to this the issue of not just CO2, which is of course vital, but also that of safety.  To my mind, environmental concerns are global.  This was brought home to me in the mid 1990s by none other that the ecologist and botanist Dr. David Bellamy.   After he gave a talk, I asked him what he thought of the North Sea oil industry.  His answer surprised me.  David Bellamy regarded the North Sea has having the best and highest safety regulations and record in the world.  He said that one had to be very careful in campaigning against oil and gas extraction and gave the example of Conoco in Central America.  Conoco had obtained licences to drill in part of this nation's rainforest and had prepared careful plans to do so with the minimum of ecological impact.  The green campaigners in the USA strongly objected and launched a huge campaign to stop Conoco drilling in the rainforest.  The Greens won: Conoco decided that the adverse publicity was not worth it and withdrew.  Big celebrations among environmentalists.
That still left a poor nation with an unhappy government determined to do its best.  What happened after Conoco pulled out was the government granted licences to some two-bit drilling outfit who didn't give a damn either about its public image and even less about the environment.  The new operators trashed the place.

Since then, I have been working in the oil industry, very much at the sharp end and all over the world.  I found Dr. Bellamy to be correct: the North Sea basin (United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands) is collectively the best, the safest, the cleanest and most regulated oil and gas basin in the world.  Outside Northern Europe, the industry is patchy.  Some of the oil majors do manage to uphold high standards throughout their global operations.  Others say they do, while if the crunch comes and an incident reported, the move is not to investigate but to cover up.
This ought to show that if we in the UK do not use our own expertise, under our own regulations, to the standards applied to the offshore industry, but yet continue to import oil and gas from other parts of the world, we don't really care about the environment.  What we don't know may not upset us but we will be doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, accidents and pollution elsewhere.

So it saddens me that we have an email Willie Rennie saying that the policy committee has decided to oppose fracking on the grounds of climate change.  As I have outlined above, this would be factually incorrect and smacks more of popularism than policy.  This drive is from top-down and does not reflect either conference decision nor understanding of the issues.

In campaigning, messages have to be simplified.  What should never, ever happen is that the message dictates the policy.  I get that fracking is not popular but for us to examine the evidence and then campaign against what the evidence says is frankly perverse.  That is one bandwagon that the Liberal Democrats should never jump on.  To do so may lead to some short term success but it will inevitably lead us being hollowed out morally as a party.  The last thing we need to adopt is an opportunistic culture.  Liberal Democrats need to be evidence-based.

Winning is important but if the leadership starts reversing conference decisions because they are politically inconvenient, we have to ask ourselves: what kind of party are we becoming?

Fracking Under National Parks

One noted the care taken in the choice of words from the government spokesman when he talked about "horizontal shale layers".  This was in reference to the government vote today on whether to allow fracking underneath environmentally sensitive sites.  The spokesman went on to mention that the limit on measured hydraulically-induced fractures (or fracks, as I shall call them for the rest of the piece) is 600m, so that a safety limit of double that difference, 1200m, will be safe enough.

The aforementioned horizontal shale layers imagine the geology of the UK as some kind of layer cake, with one layer of sediment being deposited upon another.  There are such places on Earth where this does occur (Permian Basin in Texas is a good example) but the UK is not one of them.

The cross section above shows the structure of some of the geological basins that are potential targets for fracking in the north of England (Copyright DECC, 2013).  Even at this simple level, the potential complexity of the basins can be made out.  As one investigates on the local level, the complexity increases.

As always, the devil is in the detail.  Or facts, as they are otherwise known.  The fact is that every geological prospect is different and without having the geophysical data, and the knowledge of how to interpret it, it is not possible to know whether this 1200m safety limit is enough.  For example, if the fracks reach a porous layer of rocks above, there will be nothing to stop fluids reaching higher levels or even the surface.  This is where good surveying and the highest of standards come in.  In my long experience of working in the industry, most companies and individuals I have had the pleasure of working with have excellent standards.  Things can and do go wrong however, despite the best of measures.  This is why that, in the previous Coalition, the Liberal Democrats introduced the ban on fracking within national parks and under environmentally-sensitive sites.  It is this ban that the government is due to overturn in a Commons' vote today.  The 1200m safety limit is a barely minimum standard anywhere, never mind a national park.

Out of interest, what will the effect of drilling from outside the nation park actually allow?  Most people outside the industry may imagine that well bores go straight down.  This has long not been the case.  Drilling strings are steerable, allowing wells to be drilling even horizontally, should that be necessary.  The advantage to this, especially for fracking, is that a hole can be drilled along the target formation, maximising hydrocarbon production.
There are technical limits to horizontal drilling.  The longest wells rarely go past 8000m so, if one were to site a drilling rig just outside a national park and the geology allowed, this would be roughly the maximum extent of intrusion possible into the park.  However, if a combination of wells are used, it would be possible to set up network of interacting wells underneath a given target, allowing for large areas of fracking to take place under any given terrain.   This would effectively negate any benefit of national park protection if they become ringed with heavy industrial sites.

The government has announced that allowing fracking under national parks will "kickstart" the industry in the UK.  This is rubbish: what will kickstart any oil and gas exploration is the market price of energy.  That's it.  There is effectively nothing that any government can do to encourage fossil-fuel exploration while energy prices are low.  These prices are not due to recover until towards the end of the current parliament's term.

What are the Conservatives doing then?  They understand how markets work.  The measures are preparing the groundwork for when the oil and gas prices recover.   Oil companies obey the rules though: if they are told not to drill under a national park, they won't.  They will explore areas open to them.  Therefore by opening up the national parks to development, Conservatives are following another agenda, that of deregulation of the state over corporate action.

I have blogged before on the continued deregulation of the UK's energy markets by the Conservatives and it is disturbing that while they talk about energy security, in reality they are doing absolutely nothing about it.  The opposite in fact: by ending subsidies for renewable energy, they also prove that they care nothing for CO2 emissions or the resulting climate change.

I see nothing particularly wrong with fracking but it has to be regulated and monitored.  Instead the Conservatives are turning towards deregulation and free markets, regardless of the possible consequences for either the UK or the rest of the world.

Fracking and Anti-Fracking.

Fellow Liberal Democrat, Tessa Munt MP, asked for views on the proposed government legislation to enable developers gain access to resources under private property.  Tessa is anti-fracking, so my response probably will not be a pleasant read for her, but below is my initial reply.

Tessa, I will make several points.

1) You are correct. Renewables should be the priority for the UK. It seems though that the British public are against ANY form of development of the countryside. The Conservatives are pandering to this by promising a ban on further onshore windfarm development if they win power after the next election.
Research and development of renewable energy, combined with government subsidy of improving the energy efficiency of our homes and places of work, should be a priority. Perhaps the stamp-duty tax and business rates of properties could be tweaked to reflect the energy efficiencies of properties, as well as giving positive support to make buildings more energy efficient.

2) In my view, and in the view of the British Geological Survey, 300m is too shallow. In a paper cited in my block entry on fracking, the BGS says that prospects under 1000m should not be explored and developed. Although some prospects in the UK come into this zone, most are between depths of 1000 and 3000m. I am against development above this depth and the law of access should reflect that safety margin.

3) You state that hydrocarbons should be left in the ground to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. True, but that is not happening. Coal is currently supplying 30% of UK energy, and those figures are rising, thanks to cheap imports from the US. Surely it is better to exploit cleaner gas reserves and leave the coal in the ground?

4) It is interesting that you mention the Coal Industry Act. This provides precedent under the law.
Can any individual really claim ownership of the ground over a mile below their property? Similarly, if we owned the sky above our houses, an overflying aircraft would equally be guilty of trespass. It is important that legislations does recognise damage and the level of evidence should not be criminal (beyond all reasonable doubt) but rather civil, on the balance of probabilities. A civil body, perhaps advised by the BGS, should be set up to independently evaluate any complaint. This should be funded by a levy on exploration companies involved in onshore activities.

5) Energy security. One just has to remember this simple fact. Since the late 1990s, levels in production of both oil and gas from the UK sector have fallen by two-thirds. Please see my blog for a graph based upon DECC production figures.
What is clear is that Britain’s main focus should be making good on this shortfall. We are currently a net energy importer and this situation is projected only to get worse in the next decade. http://www.fraw.org.uk/publications/e-series/e03/e03-uk_balance.png

To summarise.
I am all for government subsidy into renewable energy and energy saving in our nation’s buildings. We should investigate methods of taxation that reward responsible owners and disadvantage those who make no effort to improve their properties.

1000m should be the minimum depth of development, not the 300m cited in the proposed law.

In order to further decrease greenhouse gas emissions, usage of coal to generate electricity should be completely phased out as soon as possible.

Precedent for the proposed law already exists. An independent body, advised by the BGS, should be set up to evaluate damage claims. This body should be funded by a levy on the energy companies.

The status-quo is not tenable. If we do nothing as a nation, refuse to develop the opportunities open to us, we are effectively washing our hands of the matter and in importing more energy, we are paying cash to export the problem and our responsibilities.

If you wish to support Tessa's point of view, her website can be reached here.

My previous blogs on fracking for beginners can be reached through this link.

I fully intend to look over the government's consultation paper on drilling access and give a more detailed account later.

UPDATE

The day after I published this blog, the BGS published their Aquifers and Shales; a series of interactive maps showing the proximity of shale prospects to drinking water aquifers.  It is especially useful as it gives both plan and section views, giving the vertical distance between formations.  On the basis of this information, it is expected that drilling will be prevented where there is a risk to drinking water.

The site also gives details of their water-sampling project, which establishes a base line of the current methane content in the UK's potable water aquifers.  This is something that the US failed to establish prior to their fracking industry going ahead.

Fracking for Beginners (Part Two)

In Part One, we examined the basics involved in setting up a well site and the impact on local communities. This time we have a closer look at fracking and the possible impact the process has on the environment. If you have not read Part One and only have a vague idea what happens on a well site, you would be well advised to read that one first then come on back here. I have tried to keep technical terms to a minimum but unless you know what the basics are, some of what follows below may be lost.


As stated in Part One, a well bore is cased and cemented and this is no small thing as the cost of casing is often as much as fifty percent of the entire well. Usually that is enough to prevent sub-surface fluids migrating up the outside of the casing and reaching upper rock layers or even the surface. This is still important whether a well is to be fracked or not. Unfortunately not all cement jobs are tip-top. On a well offshore Angola, I once identified a zone devoid of cement, over which the client intended to perforate the well. If they had done so, at best some oil would have been wasted as it migrated up the outside of the casing and into upper formations. (Not that I got any thanks for telling them of course, you’re welcome). Bad cement jobs can be fixed though. After cement has been allowed to set, acoustic logging tools should be run, which will tell the company whether their casing has a good bond with surrounding rock. If it is found that there is bad cement contact, the well can be repaired (known in the business as a “squeeze job”). Of course, this is an extra expense but given the risk to surface waters, a necessary procedure. Thus the wells used in fracking should be surveyed for cement bonding and repaired if necessary. In addition, it is standard practice that all cased wells should be pressure tested to prior to being perforated to ensure structural integrity. It cannot be emphasised enough as to the importance of the casing and its bond with the formation.

Fracked wells are different from standard wells though insofar that in a usual reservoir, the oil and gas has already migrated from a source rock and have been accumulated naturally. So when a well bore pierces an accumulation, there is only one way for the hydrocarbons to go – up the well. An artificially fractured formation on the other hand releases its gas and it goes in the direction of low pressure – into the well bore again or, if the pressure difference is not enough, upwards. After all, gas and oil are less dense that water and therefore floats, even up through a column of rock unless it meets an impassible barrier. It is suspected that this has been the issue in Pennsylvania where some fracked wells have been accused of polluting water supplies. In those cases, the wells have been extremely shallow, less than half a kilometer deep, so it can easily imagined that extra release of gas would rapidly make its way to surface. One of the problems with the US is that there was no measured baseline that could tell consumers what was in their water before fracking started so it cannot be ascertained what levels of natural gas were making its way to the surface before fracking began. That should not be the case in the UK where water supplies are well monitored and companies ought to know already what is coming out of our taps.

If I might be allowed a digression, I would like to illustrate the point of gas migration. Natural gas (methane) is produced from both shale rich in organic content and coal. As you know, accumulations of methane in a coal mine are extremely dangerous so the British Coal Board used to syphon off the methane and it would end up in the national gas grid, providing the tax payer with a nice little extra income. When the mines closed, so did much of the gas collection associated with them. That means for nearly thirty years now, that gas has just been naturally dissipating up through the surface layers and into the atmosphere. What a waste, especially since methane is ten times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

This small tale of woes illustrates however that gas migration is a natural event. With this in view it would be unwise to frack shallow formations. Gas from deeper formations has far more chance of being trapped against higher, impermeable layers of rock. The same can be said for the fracking fluid. A shallow target is far more likely to pollute shallow ground water. It has to be pointed out though that deep ground water has often been down there for millions of years and as a result can be pretty nasty stuff itself, often rich in salts and dissolved metals. Any fluids coming to surface from the well bore will have to be treated as industrial waste. I believe at this time most of it is reused in the drilling / fracking process. Of course, fracking water is unlikely to migrate as quickly as gas but one must be alert to the possibility. Such risks have already been recognized by the British Geological Survey; in their paper THE UNCONVENTIONAL HYDROCARBON RESOURCES OF BRITAIN’S ONSHORE BASINS - SHALE GAS certain potential targets in Midlands have already been ruled out of development owing to their near-surface position. Drawing on analogies from the USA, the BGS have identified that potential target shales should be at the depth of at least 1000m, with most of them being a lot deeper.

Earthquakes have also been fretted over as a potential threat from fracking. Let me be very clear: fracking causes earthquakes. In fact, almost by definition, fracking is the artificial inducement of localized earthquakes but of a magnitude so small as to be undetectable by human senses. The recorded earthquakes caused by fracking activity, those nearby Blackpool in 2011, were of magnitudes 1.5 and 2.3. My theory of what happened is that the fracking pumps introduced additional energy into a system that is metastable. What does that mean? Let me illustrate it by comparing it to settling alight a lump of coal. If one was to strike a match under a coal and expect it to burn, it will be a cold night. There isn’t enough energy to start detaching the hydrogen atoms from the carbon – it is this breakage that releases additional energy in the form of heat. So a fire of tinder then of wood kindling is built up first, then the coal is introduced. The energy now available is enough to set up a chain reaction in the coal and release the energy within. It is the same principle with the Blackpool earthquakes – energy which was stored up in that part of the earth was released when the addition energy from the fracking was introduced. So can it happen again? The answer is yes. It should however be put into context.

A couple of years ago I was in a hotel in Haifa when, closed to ten o’clock in the evening, my bed started to sway gently. At first I thought I was imagining it but no, it really was happening. After ten seconds or so it stopped. I had just survived my first earthquake. It was a magnitude 5.5 with the epicenter in Cypress where it measured 5.9 on the Richter scale. Although no longer used by geophysicists, the Richter scale remains the public benchmark of earthquake intensity. It is logarithmic, which means a magnitude 2 earthquake is ten times more powerful that a magnitude 1, and likewise a 3 is ten times stronger than a 2. So that 5.5 Haifa quake was 2000 times stronger than the Blackpool earthquake at 2.3 on the scale (10x10x10x2). What is accounted as a large earthquake, a magnitude 7, would be 70,000 times stronger and the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011, which led to tragic Japanese tsunami and the destruction of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, was a magnitude 9.1 (8x10x10x10x10x10x10), eight million times stronger that the strongest Blackpool event. The energy involved in such large events are almost beyond human imagination; certainly beyond all nuclear arsenals owned on the entire planet. Wikipedia gives it at 600 million times stronger that the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima and fair play to you if you can encompass that in your imagination because I cannot. I can see though that the energy provided by thirty or so pump trucks used in fracking is miniscule by comparison. That is not to say though that we are totally in the clear however. A recent paper in Science suggests that larger earthquakes far from fracking sites could trigger smaller but still quite powerful (magnitude 4 to 5) quakes around fracking sites, along the principle of the extra energy introduced could lead to greater local instability. If that is the case there is still the possibility of some damage to property. On that basis, it would be sensible for the government to ensure that license holders are suitably insured to cover potential claims.

None of this answers the basic question of “Does the UK need fracking?”

The graph above is based upon figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and is worth a moment’s consideration. The first peak in oil production (in blue) coincides with the miners’ strike of the 1980s and the subsequent need to pay the resulting unemployment and disability benefit, as well as replace coal as Britain’s major source of fuel. This replacement of coal also explains the “dash to gas” (in red). Giving up coal though is not a bad thing as far as greenhouse gases are concerned because of all the fossil fuels, coal is the dirtiest. As is painfully clear from the graph, production from the offshore has been consistently falling from the turn of the century and despite the promise of new finds in the future, this trend will continue unless new sources are discovered. At this time, coal still makes up 30% of how our energy is produced and coal imports are rising, as are imports of both oil and natural gas. From its peak in the late 1990s, UK oil production is down 67% and gas has fallen 66%.

New sources should certainly not be restricted to hydrocarbons. In government figures published in 2012, the UK is slightly under-achieving on our renewable targets but I would make the point that if the focus of both private and public investment is switched purely into fracking, the nation will miss the modest target of fifteen percent renewable energy by 2020. The current total of wind and solar is 4.5%, with the remaining five percent being made up by hydro-electricity. Germany on the other hand is looking towards a 35% target for renewables by 2020. Cynics might say “Good! Let Britain compete with cheaper energy costs” but the retort is “what happens when the hydrocarbons run out?” Germany will have already made the investments necessary to keep the lights on and the factories working.

Another important question is will fracking result in cheaper energy? I doubt it; the promise of free electricity was first made with nuclear power in the 1950s. What will definitely happen, if the promised levels of gas can be produced, is that price-rises will be slowed. It is simple economics, demand for energy is rising globally but meeting some of that demand locally will give some counter-balance to that trend. Nuclear power will also have a role to play in the future as it is clear that Britain’s old nuclear power stations are at the end of their respective lives. I am no fan of nuclear energy (mainly for its waste and the weaponisation of by-products) but the new generation seem to offer less waste and there is potential in thorium-based technologies, which is easier to obtain than uranium and far less useful to designers of nuclear weapons.

At this time it is not possible to know how many new jobs will be created due to fracking because, as I pointed out in Part One, it is impossible to know for sure what is down there until the hole is drilled. It is known though that at this time about 85,000 jobs are linked to offshore work and that we are an aging workforce. Certainly those with technical skills, engineering and science-based degrees will be demand by both the fracking and renewable industries. This has the potential to be a golden time for UK colleges and universities but one can be sure if the people here do not possess the necessary skills, the posts will be filled somehow.

The government should not leave it up to private companies to enforce their own safety standards, especially when the results of a large accident are so potentially damaging, in terms of the danger to human life and environment yes, but also in terms of public relations. Few blowouts that occur offshore make it into public consciousness but it would not be difficult to imagine the outcry if images of a well out of control on land would make on the television screens. Cuadrilla, the main player in the infant UK fracking field at this time, claim on their website they are subjected not only to careful planning regulations but also to unannounced site visits. I sincerely hope that public staff in this area has not been cut back in recent years because if the projections for the number of wells are accurate, there will be a need for a knowledgeable and well-funded (no pun intended) governmental inspection regime.

While on the topic of government intervention, I am somewhat nonplussed by the Conservative’s tax break for fracking companies and the reason for my puzzlement is this: despite the fact it is in its infancy, drilling on land is much cheaper than drilling offshore. Rigs are less expensive to rent than their offshore counterparts and the logistics are far easier. So why would companies need large incentives to open up land operations and in comparison making offshore investment less attractive?

During a Twitter exchange and subsequent blog, a friend offered the view that the Conservatives were pushing for fracking purely to preserve the South East from development by renewables such as wind farms. I thought this “wonderfully cynical” until proved wrong the very next day by Lord Howell speaking in Parliament. What is evidently clear is that the whole issue of energy supply is too important for short-term politics. A single technology does not hold the key to securing our energy future. It is vital that as much investment as possible is put into renewables now; to look ahead to 2050 still relying primarily upon fossil fuels would be irresponsible in the extreme. Nuclear too will have a role. When it comes to electricity generation, gas-fired power stations are the cleanest option that fossil fuels gives us so fracking will play an important part in making our greenhouse gas targets by replacing coal. Wide-scale activity such as fracking and renewables could also herald the re-industrialisation of the United Kingdom.

But maybe people prefer to leave the money-making to the City and the global banks nowadays? If that is the case, let me know how it works out.

Fracking for Beginners (Part One)

It has finally happened. I have been threatening to write this blog for some time. Over the years I have visited and worked on a number of land-based rig sites across five continents. I have also been on a total of three fracking jobs, two on land. I think we can ignore the marine survey as neither the Tories of southern England nor Greenpeace / FOE are likely to superglue themselves to Dyce heliport. What happens over the horizon, out of sight of land, is out of mind as far as most of the population is concerned.


I have decided to do this blog in two parts with this, the first part, being based upon my actual experiences of land-based well sites. In the second blog I intend to look at the pros and cons of drilling in the UK, fracking, and where, if at all it fits into the nation’s long term energy and economic needs.

What follows in this first part will be broken down into easy-to-swallow segments. We will first address what the average well site consists of; the amount of disturbance is created in terms of land use, noise and traffic, and also the benefits of being near a well site for communities and local businesses (yes there really are some!). We shall also examine what goes into the creation of a borehole and how it is fracked.

Now I cannot claim expertise in all the fields as each are specialised. In fact that is what few really appreciate about working the oil patch: we are a collection of experts with very few able to perform all the tasks involved. In order to know our own job though, it is necessary to know what the other folks are doing. In the process of making an oil well (technically it is called a bore hole or well bore because most drilled do not contain oil!) there are many variables so those readers who know me professionally, please understand you are not the target audience. Generalisations will be made, processes simplified and technical terms exiled.

The first question that springs to mine is how on earth does a company decide to drill in Location A and not Location B? Especially since Location A maybe in the South East, be in rich farm land near to several quaint villages (with accompanying astronomic property prices) while Location B is some blasted heath in the far-flung corner of the North East, which seems to be the Conservatives preferred location for such industrial activity. Of course, the answer is geology and a technique known as seismic is the most usual method for surveying the sub-surface of the Earth. Now the planet is 1000s of kilometres thick but as prospectors we are only interested in the top five kilometres or so. The reason for this is that as we go deeper into the planet, the hotter it gets; too hot and any oil and gas is literally baked away. Picture the different rocks as layers in a cake; sometimes though the cake layers have been tilted and even bend or broken. These layers can be mapped across the country and linked to where they break the surface. In fact, when it comes to England, the layers are angled so in general they come to the surface in chronological order, with the youngest rocks coming to the surface in the East and oldest in the West of the country. So it is quite possible that in economically poor areas, there simply isn’t the right layer present while those in the South East are once again sitting upon a fortune. Geology doesn’t have a social conscience.

It is possible to target a given layer but until somebody drills into it, it is simply unknowable what it contains. In most cases the contents turns out to be water; sedimentary rocks are saturated with the stuff. On occasion though, oil and / or gas does accumulate and are trapped in certain layers. These are the juicy targets that petroleum geologists are seeking for. Now some people (in fact a surprising number of people) think as an oil accumulation forming in a vast cave underground and that that drilling into it is like pushing a straw into a drinks carton. I’m sorry but it ain’t so. The top layers of the Earth are more like a sponge with the water, oil and gas in the microscopic holes between the solid bits of rock. It is important that these tiny holes are interconnected though; more on this later.

So the oil company have decided where to drill, have paid the lease rights to both government and landowner. This is a problem for companies for the last thing they want to deal with is a host of small-holders each holding out for a fortune. They much rather deal with a few large-scale estates. One well I working upon in the North West of England was leased from a Duke, as the family holdings were extensive and the negotiating process simplified as a result. So the first practical point is that if you are waiting for an oil company to show up and pay you a fortune for drilling in your back garden, you can forget it.

One benefit though of drilling on large estates though is that well sites are often surprisingly discrete. Unless they are positioned right on the side of a road (or somewhere are flat as the Lincolnshire Fens), most people will just notice the occasional obscure sign with an arrow giving directions. Of course, I am the first to agree that if you are in plain view of a rig site, it does nothing to enhance the landscape. There is a lot of traffic movement related to the setting up and running of a well site but drivers, especially those with heavy loads, are given strict routes to follow in order in minimalise disturbance to local communities. It is strange but well sites can be the deuce to find for the first time. Which is all to the good as they are not pleasant places to be. A drill site location has to be levelled and since the average site is the size of two football pitches (roughly 3.5 acres / 1.4 ha) it is no small feat. The site has to be recorded for the intention is to return it to its original condition, including contours, once the drilling is over. But in the meantime activity is twenty-four-seven; the site brightly illuminated at night and generators constantly running. On such a site will be the drilling derrick (the rig), its power supply, a large area of shallow pools for the storage of drilling mud and other fluids, storage areas for drill pipe and casing (more of which later), a narrow elevated platform called a cat walk, reserved zones for specialist vehicles such as cement and wireline trucks, a container park, portable cabin offices, catering (sometimes), some crew quarters and a car park. The zone will be serviced by a heavy-duty forklift and will have a mobile crane either permanently on site or on hire and thus a frequent visitor. The work area will be surrounded by a fence (with emergency access gates) and with have a single entrance in order to keep animals, the unwary and the innocent out. It is an industrial site and strict safety rules are enforced for the protection of all.

A basic drill string consists of a drill bit, a set of weights known as the collars and the drill pipe, which is stacked in sections upright in the derrick. The borehole is actually drilled by rotating the drill string from the derrick. As you will know, dig a hole deep enough and it will start to fill with water. The deeper the hole and the water will fill up the hole with greater force. This is prevented in a wellbore by the use of drilling mud, which stabilises the pressure and keeps the hole from collapsing. Drilling mud is actually clever stuff; it has to be heavy enough to keep the fluids from the Earth coming in but not so heavy that it actually starts to break the rock down. This stuff is pumped through the hollow drill string and returns to surface where it is constantly monitored for contamination by water, oil or gas. If the volume of the mud has found to increase more that would be due to thermal expansion (remember, it’s hot down there) then this could indicate fluid from the well coming into the mud. Known as a kick, this could be the precursor to a full blowout.

Now, I am sure most of you remember the old movies where the old drillers strike oil which gushes up in a fountain, all us rig-monkeys dance around singing “We’ve struck oil! Yeehah!” and the oriental clients shout up to Bruce Willis “You No.1 driller Harry!” Well, if oil starts shooting out of the derrick anywhere near me, you can be sure I would be legging it. That is known as a blowout and is A Very Bad Thing. The drilling mud is the primary defence against a blowout but in case that is not enough, the well can be closed (shut in) by the BOPs – blow out preventers. In the worst case scenario, the whole string can be severed and the well closed in by what is effectively a massive pair of sharpened gates – the shear rams. At this point most readers are going to think of images of the Deep Water Horizon and you would be right. But Horizon was a failure of not just the BOPs but also the cement as well, which we will discuss next.

The well is drilled in sections. A “typical” well may be first opened using a 30” diameter bit, then the next section a 20” bit, deeper still 12.25” then 8.5” and for a really deep or high pressure well (usually deeper than 4.5km), down to a 6” bit. As a gross generalisation, an average well is in the order of two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half kilometres deep. As each section is completed, it is lined with steel casing and this is secured with cement to prevent any fluids returning up the outside of the casing. In the case of Deep Water Horizon, not only did the controls to the BOPs fail but the oil was able to come up the outside of the casing; it was a disastrous triple failure of mud, BOPs and cement.

Before the final bit of casing is run into the hole to secure it though, the well has to be surveyed. Despite what most drillers think, it isn’t all about “makin’ hole!” The geologists are rather keen to know what said hole is being made in. The most certain way to find out is to take a core sample but this is slow and expensive. The well can also be “logged” with a variety of electronic tools that, using electricity, sound, radioactivity and magnetic resonance (same technology as the MRI scanners in a hospital), building up a picture of what the rock properties are, the ratio of solid rock to space, how the spaces are connected and what fluids they contain. Fluid samples and pressures can also be taken. All this information goes into making up a picture of what is actually down there.

We have the geological picture, some oil and gas has been found (if they are not found then the well is cemented back and abandoned), the well has been cased and cemented firmly, so what happens next? The well has to perforated and tested. Perforation means holes are blown through the steel and cement over target zones. The fluids released are then allowed to flow.

You know these pictures of oil wells burning off gas in a big flare? During exploration this most usually happen during the well-test phase. The company has to know the rate of flow and at this stage there isn’t the infrastructure in place to keep any of the hydrocarbons produced so that is why they are flared off.

I just want to pause for a moment and reflect upon some of the information mentioned. As can be gathered, a well site is not a safe place. There is heavy machinery, crane lifts, stacked equipment, radioactive materials, explosives, and fluids under extremely high pressure around. All personnel have to undergo a large amount of safety training. Jobs have to be carefully planned and co-ordinated in order to avoid disasters occurring. The most effect way to stay safe is not to be somewhere you don’t have to be.

I also mentioned some advantages about having a well drilled nearby. The most obvious would be if one was an owner of a small business. While some workers would have accommodation on site, many would not. Hotels, guest houses and owners of property available for rental would definitely benefit, as would local shops, cafés, restaurants, bars and taxi services. Those who would suffer most would be those unfortunate to be on the main trucking routes. The disruption would last in the order of months.

With a standard oil-filled reservoir, that would be the end for that well until in required a work-over. A wellhead would be fitted and the rig would move on to the next location, which may be nearby or far away. But with fracking, that isn’t the end of it. The well is perforated but the difference between a rock that requires fracking and one that does not is the microscopic connections between the voids. In a traditional reservoir, those pathways exist; in a fracked well they have to be created. The primary ingredients of a frack solution are water and sand but, depending on the constituents of target rock, other chemicals such as acids may be added. This solution is forced through the perforated casing, into the rock and breaks up the formation, thus releasing the oil and gas. This is fracking. If the rig pumps are not used (perhaps the rig has moved on to a new location) fracking requires truck-based pumps and there can be a lot of them on site. The site I worked in Quebec had nearly thirty of them. But again, the operation is temporary; both land operations I took part in lasted less than one month.

Finally, a pipeline would have to be laid in order to bring the produced gas from the wellhead to storage and processing. Burial increases the cost of the pipeline but if I was an energy company in the UK (which, by the way, I am not, nor do I represent one) I wouldn’t even consider laying one across the surface. It is important that the countryside is returned to as near to its original state as possible.

This has been a long blog and I appreciate you making it this far. In Fracking for Beginners Part Two, I will be having a closer look at fracking, what can really go wrong, what are the choices we face and recommendations as to what can be done to ensure that the UK has the energy we and our children will need for the century ahead.

Click here to read Part Two