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HOUSTON — Faced with growing criticism and lawsuits, an oil
industry task force representing hundreds of companies in North Dakota pledged
on Wednesday to make an all-out effort to capture almost all the natural gas
that is being flared in the Bakken shale oil field by the end of the decade.
The gas being flared as a byproduct of a rush of oil
drilling releases roughly six million tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere every year, roughly equivalent to three medium-sized coal plants.
Because of a lack of gas-gathering lines connecting oil wells to processing
plants, nearly 30 percent of the gas flowing out of the wells has been burned
as waste in recent months.
The task force reported to the North Dakota Industrial
Commission, the state regulator, that the industry could in two years improve
the percentage of gas captured to 85 percent, from 70 percent, and to as much
as 90 percent in six years.
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| Image Source: NYTimes.com |
That would still mean more waste at the Bakken field than
virtually all the country’s major oil fields. But it would represent a
substantial improvement because so many new wells are being drilled. Energy
experts expect a 40 percent increase in the gas produced from the Bakken field
by the end of 2015.
“The industry recognizes the importance of capturing this
valuable resource,” said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum
Council, in a statement.
The task force said the industry could reach its goals by
speeding the construction of gas-gathering pipelines and processing plants, and
it called for stricter regulations requiring producers to create gas-capture
plans before filing for a drilling permit. Failure to submit such a plan,
according to the task force proposal, “may result in the denial or suspension
of new drilling permits, while existing wells may be required to restrict
production.”
The task force also recommended that the state support the
rapid build-out of pipelines and electrical-transmission infrastructure with
property tax credits, production tax credits and low interest loans along with
incentives for increased local industrial use of gas for fuels, petrochemicals
and fertilizers.
“It looks like a pretty good solution,” said State Senator
Connie Triplett, a Democrat who has been urging stricter controls on flaring.
“They actually invited regulation from the Industrial Commission, which has to
be a first for the oil industry in North Dakota.”
The Bakken field is one of the fastest-growing oil producers
in the country, rising from negligible production six years ago to one million
barrels a day because of the technological advances in fracturing shale rocks
and drilling horizontally.
North Dakota has become the second-biggest oil-producing
state after Texas, and it has the lowest unemployment rate of any state thanks
mostly to the oil industry. But the increase of flaring and a rash of explosive
train accidents involving Bakken crude have raised concerns in North Dakota
that there has been too much of a rush to increase production without adequate
concern for public safety and the environment.
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