U.S. Government Contemplate Fracking Solution Disclosure
The U.S. Interior Department said it is considering requiring companies to reveal the chemicals used in drilling to extract unconventional gas resources.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said natural gas production has a 'bright future' in the United States, but his department must make sure gas development utilizing hydraulic fracturing on federal lands is done in a manner that is not harmful to the environment.
'The question really in my mind is how we move forward in a way that can reassure the American public that what we are doing is in fact safe and is in fact protective of the environment,' Salazar said on Tuesday at the start of a department forum on the use of hydraulic fracturing on public lands.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process that injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to stimulate oil and natural gas production.
The introduction of technological advances has as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have allowed exploration and production firms to commercially access vast reserves of unconventional shale gas in recent years.
However the growth of unconventional gas development has brought with it concern about public worries of contamination of ground water. Supporters of fracking say the drilling technique is safe and is carried out thousands of feet underground, much deeper than most water sources.
Salazar said no final decisions have been made on whether to issue a new disclosure policy, but his department is weighing arguments about the need for more transparency against industry concerns about revealing trade secrets.
With shale gas production growing throughout the nation, Interior is also considering formally revamping its current fracking regulations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is undertaking a comprehensive study on the impact of hydraulic fracturing and has asked major oil services companies to turn over details about the chemicals used in their fracking processes. The agency is obliged by law not to reveal any proprietary information provided by companies to the agency for its study, however.
Energy companies have begun attempting to make some information about fracking chemicals more readily accessible to the public.
Petroleum services giant Halliburton Co. has a website that provides information on the chemicals the company says are in its three most commonly used solutions in the state of Pennsylvania, home to the Marcellus Shale, the biggest known deposit of natural gas in the United States.
Halliburton does not say how much of each chemical has been pumped into the ground or identify the wells where they are used, nor does it reveal the exact concentration of each chemical in an overall solution. In general, water makes up the lion’s share. Sand comprises about 6 percent while chemical cocktails amount to less than 2 percent.