Stunning String of Lethal Oil and Gas Accidents is no Accident

With headlines focused on the largest disaster, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, you may have missed a story or two about other recent oil and gas disasters. Make that three, at least:

1) June 7:

Gas drilling fire burns 7 workers in W. Virginia

A fireball and explosion burned seven members of a crew
drilling for natural gas at an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia on
Monday, the second big fire at an energy formation known as the
Marcellus Shale [non-conventional natural gas, more toxic, more dangerous conditions -ED] in less than a week

2) June 7, 2010

At least three people were killed and dozens more sent to area hospitals
in a natural gas explosion Monday that generated a towering flame that
could be seen from miles around and burned into the evening.

Ten people were reported missing in the blast on the Johnson and
Somervell county line that was caused when workers digging hit a gas
line with a post hole digger,

3) Thu-Fri June 3-4

June 4 (Bloomberg) — A Pennsylvania natural-gas well operated by EOG
Resources Inc. had a “blowout” last night, sending flames and drilling
fluids 75 feet (23 meters) into the air, the state’s Department of
Environmental Protection said.

…“The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident
that endangered life and property,” John Hanger, the state
environmental department’s secretary, said today in a statement. “This
was not a minor accident, but a serious incident that will be fully
investigated by this agency with the appropriate and necessary actions
taken quickly.”

Environmentalists were quick to compare the two blowouts and call for
tighter regulation of the growing use of hydraulic fracturing to
extract gas from shale formations. Drillers using the process inject a
mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to crack open
shale and unlock gas deposits.

“We see a lot of parallels,” said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst with
the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York- based advocacy
group. “This is a very complex process with a lot of risks and
involves a lot of complicated technology. The strongest standards need
to be in place.”

There is a need for federal regulation of drilling in shale formations
so there is a “minimum standard”, Mall said. Pennsylvania is in the
processing of revising its rules on fracturing, “but not every state
is,” Mall said.

We’re not “Running out” of either but ran out of the cheaper, easier kind. Which means that we could either go to renewables and conservation or, Business As Usual: move to the harder to get at, more expensive, and “you thought thd old stuff was polluting? wait till you see this stuff” more toxic “non-conventional” forms of oil and gas. Like “tar sands” in Canada, ultra-deep-water drilling miles below the floor of the ocean or in the arctic, and non-conventional natural gas

These require massive amounts of water, or use toxic chemicals, or use massive amounts of energy and untested procedures of questionable safety, or all of the above.

Reuters with some additional background: “The vast Marcellus Shale field runs through West Virginia and
Pennsylvania. On Thursday, a well operated by EOG Resources Inc in
Pennsylvania blew out when a drilling team lost control of it while
preparing to extract gas using the hydraulic fracturing technique.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, said it appeared
West Virginia fire was also caused by workers getting ready to use
hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to get to the gas.
Critics of fracking say domestic water supplies are contaminated by
chemicals that are forced into the ground along with sand and millions
of gallons of water to free gas from fissures in the shale a mile or
more underground”.

beforeitsnews.com