Drilling down

The hunt for as yet untapped gas reserves is never far from controversy.
Even the slang for hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting fuel from shale rock – fracking – has become a derogatory and pejorative term associated with images of burning taps and earthquakes.
Yet when the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change confirmed its plans to simplify the process to exploit indigenous resources a mile below the ground – despite the majority of 40,000 respondents to the DECC consultation opposing it – it confirmed that Britain was indeed in the middle of a “dash for gas”.
DECC’s consultation on underground drilling access asked the public’s views on removing the requirement for operators to obtain permission from landowners before accessing it.
While the Crown owns mineral rights to oil and gas in the UK, landowners still owned the land beneath their homes. The onshore oil and gas industry had highlighted underground access as one of its most pressing concerns and a barrier to expanding exploration, particularly in built-up areas.
In order to simplify the process, and speed up the time it could take for the industry to develop, DECC removes the need for operators to seek consent from the landowner, although any drilling would need to meet planning, environmental and health and safety legislation.
It said that with horizontal drilling and any exploration being at least one mile down, the impact caused by drilling would be “negligible”.
The process of fracking, and other methods of extraction of unconventional oil and gas, is not new but the reason for the heightened interest has been in part because of the success in the US, where thousands of wells have been drilled and gas prices lowered substantially.
But just because the process has been successful in one part of the world, does not mean it will necessarily work here.
Professor Dorrik Stow, head of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, said even in the US, some areas which had been drilled provided a very low return and he called for more detailed research into shale gas reserves.
“What we need is unbiased information and we get that from good research into the systems that we may be dealing with.
“We should be doing the research first to find those sweet spots where it’s easier to get more gas out or if there is more gas there in the first place.”
Scotland, like other parts of the UK, has interested parties wanting to conduct exploratory work. Ineos, for example, recently bought the rights to explore a 127 sq mile area around Grangemouth – where it owns the petrochemical plant – and the Firth of Forth.
Stow believes that the companies involved should be asked to pay a percentage of the money spent on exploration to fund wider university research programmes on the subject.
He said: “Our government and regulatory systems should be hard-nosed enough to say, ‘if you want a licence, part of the deal is you engage with the universities into some serious research into shale gas’.”
The reason for much of the opposition to fracking is in part environmental damage, which includes methane leaks and water pollution as well as earthquakes.
Stow said: “One of the things I’m fairly sure is the case is all the problems that have been reported are due to poor well design and absolutely nothing to do with the fracking process. The fracking itself is very deep and away from the water table.
“The issue of earthquakes is pretty much a non-issue, the movement of water around a depth anywhere can create minor seismic activity, but the emphasis is on the minor.”
Earlier this year, the British Geological Survey produced its most detailed estimations yet on the potential shale gas in the Midland Valley of Scotland, but even then, there was a wide range of between 49.4 and 134.6tr cubic feet of shale gas and between 3.2 and 11.2bn barrels of shale oil, even before it was calculated how much could actually be extracted.
It demonstrates how little is still known about fossil fuel, whether it is financially viable to extract it and how long reserves would last if it is indeed found to be truly suitable as part of the energy mix.
In Aberdeenshire, the UK Government has made licences available for two sites, near the settlements of Stonehaven and Laurencekirk.
The Scottish Green Party has started a petition to oppose the exploratory work, although it recognises no company has yet applied for licences. 
David Officer, one of the members behind the petition, said: “Our belief is that, regardless of the many well documented risks associated with fracking, we simply shouldn’t be exploring this option when we should be investing in Scotland’s vast renewable energy potential. 
“It may be more expensive to invest in renewable energy schemes in the short term but it is far cheaper than dealing with cataclysmic effects of climate change caused by the burning of hydrocarbons.  
“We have a quarter of Europe’s tidal and offshore wind potential, and we already generate half of our power from renewable sources. Scotland could be a world leader here if we chose to be.”
The DECC announcement came out just days after the referendum, but it has not been a simple tale of two governments. While Westminster has said it is committed to developing shale gas resources, the Scottish Government has not come out against, instead emphasising the environmental measures it wants to see in place.
In his response to the Aberdeenshire petition, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing criticised the “gung-ho” attitude of the UK and said Scotland was taking a “far more cautious, considered and evidence-based approach”.
He said the new Scottish Planning Policy included five measures to tighten planning controls, including buffer zones, and the close involvement of communities in the risk assessment of any proposals.