Don't Frack our future

[Magda Hassan]

The only experience they will be bringing is that of creating a complete environmental disaster.

Canadian, US investors lead suitors for Mexican shale

By Adam Critchley - Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Canadian and US investors are likely to be among the first to participate in fracking for shale gas in Mexico, bringing their experience and expertise to a sector opened up by reforms, according to analysts.
"With permission for fracking and mining to take place simultaneously, fracking will be very attractive to Canadian investors and companies already established in Mexico," according to Jorge Pedroza, director of energy at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Mexico.
The reform legislation states that, in the event of the discovery of hydrocarbon reserves, mining companies must allow fracking in order to extract shale, while mining concessions will not grant rights over the hydrocarbon reserves that could exist in the same zone.
Mexico is estimated to have the world's sixth-largest shale reserves, in states such as Coahuila, Veracruz and Sonora, the latter a region where various Canadian and US mining firms operate.
"I think there is an opportunity in the Canadian market for raising capital to invest in the oil and gas sector in Mexico," said Mauricio Candiani, CEO of consultancy Candiani Mining.
However, Candiani said he doesn't expect it will be mining companies that invest in shale oil and shale gas extraction, due to the different techniques and expertise required.
Canada's largest shale reserves are located in British Columbia and Alberta, and it is likely that Mexico's shale sector could interest companies and investors with experience in those regions, Candiani said.
Canada and the US lead the world in shale gas production, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and are the world's only major producers of commercially viable natural gas from shale formations.
The technical expertise would come from Texas and Canada as it would be very simple to extrapolate the geographical conditions of those areas with Coahuila and northern Veracruz, where there are geological similarities, Candiani added.

http://www.bnamericas.com/news/oilandgas...o-fracking

[Magda Hassan]

Israel has no right to grant any thing there. War crime. Another one.

Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy.

Major shareholders of Genie Energy which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release:
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, "Genie's success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets.
Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable."
"I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative," Lord Rothschild said. "Rupert Murdoch's extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner.
Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world's substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world."
For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. Japan was succesfully sued by Singapore before the International Court of Justice for exploitation of Singapore's oil resources during the second world war.
The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to operate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands.
But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells let alone fracking by an occupying power is illegal.
Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian government, which gained diplomatic support from the United States. Israel is now seeking to take advantage of the weakened Syrian state; this move perhaps casts a new light on recent Israeli bombings in Syria.
In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-has-...ts/5346959

[Peter Lemkin]

In Oklahoma, water, fracking - and a swarm of quakes

BY CAREY GILLAM
NORMAN, Oklahoma Tue Nov 19, 2013 3:21pm EST

1 OF 3. Arkansas Geological Society Geohazards Supervisor Scott Ausbrooks stands over a vault which houses a seismometer in Woolly Hollow State Park in Greenbrier, Arkansas in this file photo taken August 6, 2013.
CREDIT: REUTERS/JIM YOUNG/FILES



















(Reuters) - Seismologist Austin Holland wants to start an earthquake.
From his office a few feet below the earth's surface - a basement at the University of Oklahoma in Norman - Holland, who tracks quakes for the Oklahoma Geological Survey, is digging into a complex riddle: Is a dramatic rise in the size and number of quakes in his state related to oil and gas production activity? And, if so, what can be done to stop it?
As part of his wide-ranging research, Holland is proposing to inject pressurized water into porous rock in an area already known to be earthquake-prone, to see whether injections of oil industry wastewater are contributing to a "swarm" of earthquakes rocking the state.
"This is a dramatic new rate of seismicity," Holland said in an interview. "We can't guarantee the earthquakes aren't a coincidence (unrelated to oil and gas work)," he said. "But it would be a pretty remarkable coincidence."
Experts say billions of dollars could be at stake, as potential new regulations could affect the oil and gas industry's profits and as lawsuits by property owners with earthquake-related claims make their way through the legal system.
Oklahoma, the nation's fifth-largest oil-producing state, recorded 238 earthquakes through November 18. More than 100 of those were at least a magnitude 3.0 on the Richter scale, tremors large enough to shake shelves and shred nerves.
One series of quakes in September near a newly opened injection well in the southern part of the state damaged several homes.
The quake activity is a far cry from four years ago when the state had but 20 rumblers of 3.0 and above. And from 1991 to 2008 there were no more than three quakes a year of that size in the state.
Since 2009, the volume of wastewater from oil and gas work injected deep into underground disposal wells has also risen, up about 50 percent in 2012 from the level seen during most of the first decade of the century, with the last couple of years showing the biggest jumps.
Most earthquakes occur naturally, but the increases in frequency and magnitude are distinct new elements, researchers say. While there are already many studies linking work at injection wells to earthquakes, Holland and other scientists are focusing on how the quakes are triggered and on measures to mitigate seismic activity.
The concern is not unique to Oklahoma. Since 2001 the average annual number of earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater has jumped "significantly" across the midsection of the country, including not just Oklahoma but also Ohio, Arkansas and Texas, according to the U.S. Department of Interior.
In Arkansas, a group of homeowners who filed lawsuits against well operators alleged that their properties were damaged by a swarm of earthquakes that hit the central part of that state in 2010 and 2011. Scientists there blamed disposal wells for touching off more than 1,000 quakes in those years.
"Potentially billions of dollars are involved, from profits to class action lawsuits," oil industry analyst John Daly noted to clients recently. "Given the stakes, Holland's research will be closely watched not only by Oklahoma's oil and gas industry but producers throughout the U.S. as well."
The increasing number of large quakes has given fresh urgency to questions about whether the seismic activity is being induced by oil and gas production activities. Along with Holland, earthquake experts in Oklahoma, Texas, California, Arkansas and elsewhere are examining the issue. The federal government and the oil industry are funding some of the research.
Most earthquakes occur naturally. But scientists have long linked some small earthquakes to oil and gas work underground, which can alter pressure points and cause shifts in the earth.
Oil and gas exploration has increased in recent years across the country, spurred by U.S. efforts for energy independence. Modern hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is one particularly controversial technique.
Fracking - which involves the injection of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into bedrock to increase the flow of oil or gas - has been the culprit in some small earthquakes around the country. But it is not suspected as the cause of the bigger and more frequent quakes that have occurred recently, according to the Interior Department.
Disposal of the wastewater generated by fracking and by other types of oil and gas production is the "focal point" for research into what scientists call "induced" earthquakes.
The increase in earthquakes might be due in part to new drilling and well-completion technologies that enable the extraction of oil and gas from previously unproductive formations, according to William Ellsworth, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Science Center.
In a report published in July, Ellsworth linked wastewater disposal to a 2011 Youngstown, Ohio, quake, and a series of earthquakes from October 2008 to May 2009 near Dallas, Texas.
Ellsworth also tied wastewater injection to a record-breaking 5.6-magnitude quake in Oklahoma in November, 2011, a tremor that damaged more than a dozen homes and several businesses.
The oil industry is not disputing the possibility of links, said Steve Everley, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a website run by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. But only a handful of injection wells are actually associated with seismic events large enough to be felt, he said. Still, he said, the industry is paying attention to the new scientific findings.
"Sound research and good data can help inform the industry and improve its operations to further reduce risk," he said.
DO-IT-YOURSELF EARTHQUAKE
Holland's research primarily focuses on analyzing how seismic activity around the state correlates with injection volumes and the numerous fault zones underlying the region. But he is also drawing up a proposal that would create a small earthquake in the south-central part of the state.
That region was rattled by dozens of earthquakes in September, including one that registered 3.4 on the Richter scale, and the quakes began within two weeks of the startup of a new wastewater injection well there. Data showed that as the volume of pressurized wastewater injections grew, so did the seismic activity.
The well operator closed the well after regulators limited its volumes in response to the quakes, but Holland is seeking permission from regulators and the well operator to reopen the well and inject ever-greater amounts of wastewater while monitoring the seismic reaction. He hopes the work can help identify safe levels of injection and strategies to reduce risks for further earthquakes.
Regulators and the oil and gas industry say they welcome the research.
"Those people that live in areas that have been seismically active ... they are very concerned," said Matt Skinner, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporations Commission, which oversees the state's 11,000 injection wells.
Tom Dunlap, owner of the injection well Holland wants to use as the test site, said he welcomes Holland's proposal as a way to limit further earthquake risk.
"What our work does ... and how that plays into seismic stuff ... we don't know," Dunlap said.