Lane Energy: Keeping Communication in Context
How much water does one frac require?
It’s important information to communicate to the public, according to Lane Energy/3Legs Resources Country Manager, Poland, Kamlesh Parmar.
He offered some context to the delegates in attendance at the European Unconventional Gas Summit in Krakow, Poland.
“The city of New York uses that amount of water in seven minutes,” he offered. “Water use is of course relevant, people have concerns about the amount of water used, but it’s only when you put it into context that people can grasp it.”
All of the operators are looking to recycle it, said Mr. Parmar, who added that Lane Energy sought to maximize recycling.
“We also try and minimized the additives in our fraccing fluids. Typical fracc fluids tend to be 98% water and sand. We use agents to make the fracc work better. It’s in all our interests to minimize the use of additives, which are generally found in household products.”
He said that everything was disclosed to Poland’s Ministry of Environment and the mining authority.
“We make sure that everything we do is in line with EU and Polish regulations.”
Lane Energy, he explained, was part of the 3Legs Resources group, which floated on AIM in London in June and has had a very busy year.
In terms of the common illusions he said that were out there about shale gas, Mr. Parmar pledged to collate them and see what the picture looked like.
He showed delegates a slide with some of the benefits.
“We’ve heard a lot about this today. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has come out in support of shale gas in Poland and it’s great to see that our industry has government backing,” he said.
Mr. Parmar noted numerous other quotes from academics, basically about the benefits of unconventional gas.
“It can add to energy security,” he said of shale gas. “It’s a good thing.”
According to a CBOS survey he cited, 73% of all Poles were in favor of shale gas. He commented: “Generally, people are on our side.”
He presented some video clips to the delegates in attendance. “One of them shows you what the hydraulic fracturing process looks like and the other what the shale gas drilling footprint looks like, demonstrating the visual impact compared to the visual alternative to the equivalent amount of energy,” he explained.
“The technologies we are using have been around for a while - what’s novel in Europe is applying them to shale gas. There’s no reason why they can’t be carried out with shales in Europe.”
He added, “There have been many fraccs carried out without any harm to groundwater.”
Parmar emphasized the upside of Lane Energy’s cooperation with ConocoPhilips on shale basins in Poland. “We have the benefit of their vast expertise in Houston, which helps our operations.”
“With a multi well pad you can access a lot more reservoir, making good use of land in an efficient way,” he said of how unconventional drilling would take place in Europe.
There was no evidence of earthquakes caused by Lane’s hydraulic fracturing, according to Parmar, who said that Lane was taking special efforts to ensure that.
“We’ve got a very good dialogue with Poland’s Ministry of Environment and they’ve asked us to be able to take real time data when we were fraccing. The chief geologist of Poland showed what the slides looked like comparing them: The Ministry concluded that it does not cause seismic events.”
Protecting air quality and minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were an important part of the equation, he said.
“The more efficient we can be, the better,” said Parmar. “Lifecycle emissions are less than coal; estimates for GHGs are overstated, and natural gas is less carbon intensive than fossil fuels.”
Speaking of hydraulic fracturing, he continued, “There are no proven documented cases of contaminated drinking water: this is the fact. Shale gas target zones are located five times below the water table. We use best practice - all the operators do - to make sure the risks are minimized.”
He presented a picture of some of the company’s well casings and moved on to speak about water use efficiency, explaining that it was necessary to put things into perspective: like how much water was used in a fracc versus how much was used in a coal fired power station.
In terms of minimizing the drilling footprint, Parmar said Lane made great efforts to use land in an efficient manner and that efficiencies were being added all the time.
“Dialogue with locals is key,” he said. “It’s a big part of my time, talking to locals and local administrators. As long as you give them time to ask you questions and have their fears allayed. You get difficult questions but you have to do it because it makes going forward that much easier.”
“We try to make sure that the sites are in rural areas. We take a lot of effort to explain that the bulk of the work that we do is subsurface,” he added.
Lane, he said, didn’t want to create noise pollution in those areas, upsetting local communities.
Parmar’s slide read “Adhering to and going beyond EU compliance.”
“These are all environmental based,” he said of the regulations he listed in his slide.
“There is an adequate framework already in place for our activity. Will it be refined over time? Of course, this is to be expected.”
He presented Lane’s Baltic basin project, comprising six licenses with rectangles showing where 3D seismic had been undertaken. Parmar said that had led to vertical test wells drilled in 2010, and a single stage fracc in one well which produced some gas.
“The plan this year was to carry out two horizontal wells with a test,” he recalled. “We’ve drilled and tested one of them and will hopefully be drilling the other to total depth in the next month or so.”
He said that the company’s drilling rig was nice, clean and quiet. He showed a photograph, which showed a fracc spread, including a lot of pumping gear. “It’s a complicated operation,” he said. “There’s the flare in the background.”
“We’ve achieved our core objective from this well,” said Mr. Parmar, who said that Lane Energy was now analyzing the data.
He concluded, “The data from both these wells is what we need to progress to the next stage.”