SWN's take on water etc.
SWN Resources explorers won't go near water supplies in NB
11/17/2010
The man in charge of SWN Resources' natural gas exploration in New Brunswick says his company wouldn't think of drilling near valuable water supplies like the Turtle Creek watershed.
"Our licence does not include the Turtle Creek watershed and we wouldn't try to get an exemption to go there," Tom Alexander, general manager of SWN Resources in New Brunswick, said yesterday.
SWN Resources holds a three-year licence to search for oil and gas in an area of more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres), which covers just about the whole southern half of New Brunswick. Over the last year, SWN has done some initial exploration and testing, with plans to drill its first test wells in the fall of 2012.
Alexander is a native of North Carolina who moved to Moncton in May and runs the operation from an office on Main Street. SWN Resources Canada, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Southwestern Energy Company, a Texas-based company that has been in the oil and gas business since 1929.
He said there is a lot of misinformation circulating about the search for natural gas but applauded Moncton city council's concern for the environment. On Monday night, city council passed a resolution asking the provincial government to not allow any oil or gas drilling in or near the Turtle Creek watershed, which supplies drinking water to more than 120,000 Metro Moncton residents. Provincial laws already prohibit drilling near water supplies but the province has the right to grant exemptions to the rule.
"I don't think DNR would grant an exemption but we wouldn't ask for it because it is too sensitive an area," Alexander said.
"We have respect for the water quality in the City of Moncton and we endorse what council came up with. I watched it and listened to it. We will want to continue to clarify misunderstandings about the industry and what it does. Certainly we want to work with whomever and wherever we operate to preserve and sustain the environment and the water quality. We regard the water as highly as everyone else and it's top on our priority to protect and preserve."
The exploration area is spread over several blocks from Rexton to Fredericton, to Harvey and MacAdam, the Chipman area and in an area from Shediac and Cocagne westward to Moncton and Salisbury.
In June, Alexander held 16 open houses throughout the exploration area to explain the processes and science involved in extracting natural gas. The presentations included maps of the area being explored and videos explaining the process of exploration and drilling. During the drilling process, the well is sealed to prevent gas from seeping into water sources around it. In the "fracking" process, water is forced into the well under pressure to crack or fracture the rock, which allows natural gas to flow into the well. The Conservation Council of New Brunswick says shale gas development has many associated environmental concerns, from damage to forests and wildlife to contamination of drinking water. A report prepared by the council says the fracking process uses massive amounts of water under pressure to open up the rock, which could allow the chemicals to seep into drinking water supplies.
"Throughout all of those open houses, water was brought up as an important consideration and we acknowledged that wholeheartedly," Alexander said. "We've gone through the proper well construction that will protect the water. We've gone through the process of stimulation (fracking). And beginning in December, I will go back out to a lot of those communities and revisit, because I told everyone this will not be the last time you see us. So they've had time to digest the information we gave them, they've had time to read and consider. There's a lot, a lot, of bad information out there, so we're going to follow up in these communities and clarify things."
He said reports that up to 900 chemicals are used in a stimulation are untrue.
"Maybe five or six, that's it. We want to make sure people make decisions and judgments based on facts. One of the things I said during our open houses is that we are transparent in our approach, we want to answer people's questions and we want to understand their concerns, and that's exactly what we're going to continue to do. So I will spend most of the winter out there talking with people and answering questions."
Alexander has said that if the exploration is successful, it could mean annual royalty revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the province. It could also create thousands of jobs. Two other companies - Apache Canada Ltd., and Corridor Resources Inc. - are also working in other parts of the province to find natural gas. Corridor Resources has already established wellheads in the province which are feeding directly into the Maritimes and Northeast pipeline which runs through New Brunswick en route from the coast of Nova Scotia to New England.
Although there is a possibility of big money and jobs for New Brunswick if more gas is found, Alexander is quick to caution that nothing has been found yet.
"The data that we gathered this summer is now being analyzed, processed and interpreted ... There's a huge amount of information that is being analyzed by the labs and in the computers. It will help direct where we look a little more intensely next year but until we drill the well, which is the third phase, that's where the rubber will hit the road where you line up all these exploration techniques and correlate those answers from the exploration techniques to the actual performance. We're on plan in terms of acquiring information."
(Telegraph-Journal)