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National Oilwell Varco (NOV) won the award for Best Health, Safety, Environment/Sustainable Development Onshore technology for its AQUA-VESTM Mobile Water Treatment System at the 2013 World Oil Awards Gala on October 17, 2013.
Two other National Oilwell Varco technologies were finalists in the categories for Best Drilling Technology and Best Well Intervention.
Congratulations for the well-deserved recognition!
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featuring several EFD West Regional Center team members.
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As improved technological developments in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have resulted in a boom of oil and gas production nationwide, water quality laws pertaining to oil and gas are evolving as well. In an effort to compare water quality legal regimes across jurisdictions, the University of Colorado Boulder's Intermountain Oil and Gas Best Management Practices Project in partnership with Temple University's Public Health Law Research Program will be unveiled its Oil & Gas - Water Quality dataset on
LawAtlas.org on December 10.
The newly launched Oil & Gas - Water Quality dataset (www.lawatlast.org/oilandgas) was created as a comparative tool for examining water quality laws and regulations related to oil and gas development in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. These states represent the jurisdictions that overlay major shale formations such as the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Greater Green River, Mancos, Marcellus, Niobrara, Permian, Piceance, Powder River, San Juan, and Uinta.
The database is envisioned as a resource that policymakers, local governments, regulated entities, and concerned citizens can use to inform themselves about the scope of laws and the best implemented laws for water quality issues pertaining to oil and gas development.
In the coming year, datasets for water quantity and air quality pertaining to oil and gas development will be added to the website. Additional states, as well as federal and local law, will be added as time and resources permit.
For more information on the project, contact
Matt Samelson at oilandgasbmps@colorado.edu.
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The disappearing road (DR) project has been a multi-year project to design, test and evaluate multiple temporary and permanent road materials for use in harsh environmentally sensitive areas. This included a nationwide University competition sponsored by Halliburton to come up with potential designs as well as actual field trials of commercially available products.
DR is a critical component of the joint industry project Environmentally Friendly Drilling Program (EFD).
The specific objectives of the DOE Environmental Drilling Systems Project are:
~ Identify new technology that can reduce or eliminate the impact of
drilling operations on environmentally sensitive areas.
~ Design an EFD system using most promising technology
~ Include environmental stakeholders in the designs
After drilling operations are completed or suspended, roads are often remediated. This removal is intended to allow the recovery of the lands to a pre-use condition so as to minimize additional access. Experience has shown that such efforts pose difficulty, highlighting the complexity of potential long-term consequences of oil and gas operations. New systems have been tested to avoid this expense.
Tests have been performed in a desert environment in West Texas as well as a second test located in a moderate climate with significantly more rain to determine the optimum operational conditions for the materials. The project evolved to include roads made from recycled well cutting, plastic composite mats and mats made from waste materials. As in all projects the viability of any method is measured by the cost and benefit relationship. If the road material reduces cost either for construction or in the case of remediation and disposal of cuttings it could be considered a success.
Click here for full report.
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Industry Calendar
Feb 4-5, 2014
Houston, TX
Feb 4-6, 2014
Fort Worth, TX
Feb 4-6, 2014
The Woodlands, TX
Feb 26-28
Lafayette, LA
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Did you miss a newsletter? Archives available on the EFD site! |
We are working on our 2014 planning!
Please send any thoughts/ideas about workshops, forums, meetings, etc. to awilcox@harcresearch.org
Please include suggested timing and location!
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of the EFD Alliance! Rice University has several initiatives that are complementary to the EFD Program, including their work on Graphene Oxide (GO).
For more information about Graphene Oxide, contact Dr. Jim Tour at tour@rice.edu
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George P. Mitchell and the Barnett Shale
An inspiring and informative story on this amazing man, referred to as "The Father of the Shale Gas Revolution," has been published in the November 2013 Journal of Petroleum Technology issue.
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The EFD program, funded by federal, state and foreign government agencies, industry and environmental organizations, provides unbiased science to policy makers and identifies, develops and tests new technologies, processes and systems to reduce the environmental footprint associated with oil and gas activities, from well site selection through natural gas compression. The program, approximately $4 million per year, is engaged in research and technology transfer activities from the Western Slope of the Rockies to the Ukraine, and from the North Slope of Alaska to Columbia (South America). Research includes land, air and water issues, as well as public perception investigations. The program was honored with the Chairman's Stewards Award for Environmental Partnership at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. For more information, see: www.efdsystems.org.
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