House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate hydraulic fracturing
House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate hydraulic fracturing
February 18, 2010
By: Dave Michaels
The House Energy and Commerce committee today requested information about hydraulic fracturing from eight oilfield services companies. The companies include Halliburton, BJ Services, Schlumberger, Frac Tech Services, Superior Well Services, Universal Well Services, Sanjel Corporation, and Calfrac Well Services.
House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate hydraulicfracturing
February 18, 2010
By: Dave Michaels
The House Energy and Commerce committee today requested information about hydraulic fracturing from eight oilfield services companies. The companies include Halliburton, BJ Services, Schlumberger, Frac Tech Services, Superior Well Services, Universal Well Services, Sanjel Corporation, and Calfrac Well Services.
The move is significant because one of the committee's senior Democrats, Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, thinks the EPA should regulate the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, which is widely used to create gas wells in the Barnett Shale. Critics like DeGette think that fracking chemicals, including diesel-based fluids, could seep into underground water sources. Her main complaint has been the lack of federal regulation of the practice (it is left up to states to supervise the safety of oil and gas drilling.) In a hat tip to DeGette, the committee's top two Democrats, Chairman Henry Waxman and Rep. Ed Markey, write in a letter today that "there is virtually no federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing."The committee has apparently been moved by the knowledge that some companies use diesel fuel as part of the cocktail they shoot underground. The big three oilfield services firms -- Halliburton, BJ Services and Schlumberger -- agreed in 2003 to stop using diesel fuel to fracture wells near underground drinking water sources. But the committee asserts that at least two of those three firms "continued to use diesel fuel in their fracturing fluids after signing the 2003 agreement with EPA." The committee's letter (pdf) says little is known about whether other companies, which have grabbed a larger share of the market in recent years, use diesel fuel in their fracturing mix.
Here is what the committee is seeking:
The Committee is requesting the most recent data on the types and quantities of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids with additional information on whether the companies injected these fluids in, near, or below an underground source of drinking water. The Committee also is requesting documents related to any allegations that the hydraulic fracturing caused harm to human health or the environment.
DeGette quickly responded that she welcomes the investigation. "I am particularly troubled by the revelation that companies have been using diesel fuel, apparently in violation of the Memorandum of Agreement with EPA. Natural gas is an important fuel for our energy future, but we must ensure that the way we retrieve natural gas does not endanger drinking water."
Markey, D-Mass., foreshadowed this move one month ago when his committee probed the subject with Fort Worth-based XTO Energy and Irving-based Exxon Mobil. Markey said there was no "conspiracy" to ban hydraulic fracturing, but that Democrats want to make sure it's done safely:
I just want to once again say there is no secret plot here to ban hydraulic fracturing given the fact that there have been 1 million wells I heard that have been drilled using that technique.