Axiall Plant needs Brine from Salt Wells
‘Near-catastrophic’ blowout leaves chem firm wary
From an Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, October 22, 2014
As the Tomblin administration considers a plan to allow natural gas drilling under the Ohio River, a major chemical maker in Marshall County has been fighting a proposal for hydraulic fracturing near its plant, citing a “near-catastrophic” gas-well incident last year that might be linked to geologic conditions beneath the river.
Atlanta-based Axiall Corp. has been waging a legal battle to stop Gastar Exploration from fracking natural gas wells that Gastar had drilled on Axiall property under leases Gastar obtained from PPG Industries, the former owner of Axiall’s chlorine and caustic soda plant at Natrium, located along the Ohio near the Marshall-Wetzel county line.
Axiall says it is concerned about a repeat of an August-September 2013 incident it blames on high-pressure fracking fluids being used by another company, Triad Hunter, to release natural gas from the Marcellus Shale at a well site on the other side of the river.
In court documents, Axiall lawyers say increased underground pressure from the fracking at Triad Hunter traveled under the river and somehow made contact with brine wells Axiall uses to obtain saltwater, one of the key materials used in its manufacturing process. Axiall says those pressures led to a blowout in which one of its brine wells at its plant “began spewing flammable natural gas.”
No injuries were reported, but parts of Axiall’s brine production were closed for more than six months for repairs and the company had to set up several large flares to burn off excess natural gas. Axiall was “fortunate to have been able to limit the environmental impact of the Triad Hunter incident and avoid bodily injury or loss of life due to a natural gas explosion or other disaster,” the company says in court records.
In a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, Axiall lawyers asked that Gastar be forced to conduct far more extensive underground investigations to determine if its gas operations pose a threat of a similar incident, and that it be required to submit more detailed plans for avoiding any damage to the Axiall facility.
“Gastar’s plan to blindly stimulate these wells by injecting fluid at extremely high pressure in order to ‘rubble-ize’ the Marcellus Shale is careless, dangerous, shortsighted and in breach of the lease agreement that permits Gastar to explore for and extract oil and gas in that area,” lawyers for Axiall subsidiary Eagle Natrium LLC argued in court filings.
Axiall lawyers said the company “supports the responsible development of natural gas” but that “extra care must be taken” when operating in the vicinity of its saltwater wells, which “are essential to the continued operation of a billion-dollar chemical plant that employs 500 people.”
Lawyers for Gastar responded that the company had “carefully studied and planned its drilling and fracturing operations in the Marcellus Shale” and that “potential” or “possible” risks were not enough to warrant the “sweeping, mandatory injunction” that Axiall sought.
On Tuesday, Allegheny County Judge Christine Ward issued a two-page order that denied Axiall’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop Houston-based Gastar from fracking wells at the Natrium site. The order said a more detailed court opinion would be filed later.
Mike McCown, chief operating officer for Gastar, said his company is pleased with the decision “as we have continually believed the allegations were without merit.” Axiall officials would not comment on the decision or on whether the company plans to appeal.
The legal battle between Axiall and Gastar comes amid continued citizen concerns about the effects on the environment and on small, rural communities of the Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling and production boom in Northern West Virginia.
In recent weeks, critics of the boom have focused their attention on Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s proposal to lease rights for private companies to drill and produce natural gas from state-owned reserves under portions of the Ohio River.
One of three areas targeted by the administration for potential lease runs along Marshall County, about two miles upriver from the Axiall facility. A second of the areas targeted for potential leasing is just south of the plant and includes about a half-mile of area that Axiall has identified as being within its “area of concern” about drilling, said Deputy Commerce Secretary Joshua Jarrell. Jarrell said another area of the river, located just alongside the plant, was initially being considered for lease but was withdrawn from consideration — at least for now — until the issues being raised by Axiall are resolved.
Jarrell said officials from his agency met with the state Department of Environmental Protection and with Axiall to discuss the company’s concerns.
“We certainly took them seriously, and under advisement,” Jarrell said Wednesday. “We certainly want to see anything with regards to development done safely and reasonably.”
Jarrell said any agreements the state makes for leasing under the river would require drilling companies to obtain permits from the DEP, and that the state would consider additional language that specifically requires the issues raised by Axiall to be resolved to the DEP’s satisfaction.
“[The] DEP is the agency that is going to evaluate the safety of the process, and we would certainly defer any of those questions to them,” Jarrell said.
James Martin, chief of the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas, said Wednesday that Gastar had obtained three permits in the area of the Natrium plant before the blowout incident. Gastar also has other permit applications pending at the facility and was identified by the state as the high bidder on the river section Axiall is most concerned about, state officials said.
Martin said his agency is looking at its options for adding some conditions to the three existing permits to require additional safety precautions by Gastar.
“We’re looking at that, and we’re considering whether or not some measures need to be taken to minimize the likelihood of something like that happening,” he said. “At this point, our expectation is that there would be no operations take place until we get done what we need to do with the conditions or an order.”
The Axiall plant’s operations date back to the 1940s, when the facility was opened to tap into a huge salt deposit located far beneath the surface. The plant uses salt mined from these subsurface deposits to produce chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen, as well as hydrochloric acid and calcium hyperchloride.
In February 2011, then-plant owner PPG issued a news release announcing that it had reached agreement with Gastar on a lease that would eventually involve more than 30 natural gas wells on the Natrium property. Gastar would hire additional employees for the work, and PPG estimated the deal would generate for it about $50 million over 30 years, including an initial payment of $10 million.
“When developed responsibly, Marcellus Shale resources represent a fantastic opportunity in our region to promote jobs and secure an abundant source of U.S.-based energy for our homes and our businesses,” Michael McGarry, PPG’s senior vice president, said in the release. “We are pleased to be working with Gastar Exploration on this exciting project and believe that this development continues to demonstrate PPG’s commitment to the long-term sustainability of our Natrium plant.”
Axiall purchased the Natrium facility from PPG in January 2013, and plans for the natural gas drilling continued — until the blowout incident.
Point Your RSS Reader to FrackCheckWV.net/feed/
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is bull shit. Gas cannot be developed responsibly.
What rules there are are insufficient and hardly enforced. Even the companies themselves are now training their workers to handle radioactive material, and lament the sadness of those who came before, working with those drill cuttings with no safety gear on.
I look for lots of cancers in the next five or ten years from this.
Lots and lots and lots.
Marcellus expert says more scrutiny needed of fracking near Marshall chemical plant
by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette, October 25, 2014
One of the nation’s best-known experts on the Marcellus Shale concluded that more investigation is needed before a Houston firm is allowed to move forward with natural gas wells near the site of a “near-catastrophic” fracking incident at a Marshall County chemical plant.
Penn State geologist Terry Engelder, who did groundbreaking work about the gas reserves available in the Marcellus formation, testified in a Pennsylvania case in which Axiall Corp. was trying to delay and force a more detailed review of its plans for hydraulic fracturing wells at Axiall’s manufacturing plant in Natrium.
“There are certainly things that can be done to gather more information that would help in understanding,” Engelder testified during a June hearing in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. “One would hope that information would be gathered.”
Engelder and another Axiall expert, petroleum engineer Brun Hilbert, testified concerns that Gastar’s wells could lead to a repeat of an incident last year that Axiall blames on high-pressure fracking fluids being used by another company, Triad Hunter, to release natural gas from the Marcellus Shale at a well site across the Ohio River.
In court documents, Axiall says that increased underground pressure from the fracking at Triad Hunter traveled under the river and somehow made contact with brine wells Axiall uses to obtain saltwater, one of the key materials used in its manufacturing process. Axiall says those pressures led to a blowout in which one of its brine wells at its plant “began spewing flammable natural gas.”
No injuries were reported, but parts of Axiall’s brine production were closed for more than six months for repairs and the company had to set up several large flares to burn off excess natural gas. Axiall was “fortunate to have been able to limit the environmental impact of the Triad Hunter incident and avoid bodily injury or loss of life due to a natural gas explosion or other disaster,” the company says in court records.
Last week, Allegheny County Judge Christine Ward refused Axiall’s request for a preliminary injunction against Gastar.
Gastar said it was pleased with the ruling, believes Axiall’s allegations in the case were without merit, and planned to move forward with its fracking “in the near future.” In a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Gastar said that leases adjacent to the Natrium plant account for nearly one-fifth of its total gas reserves.
The judge’s decision dropped the issue squarely in the lap of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which had already issued several permits for Gastar’s operations in the area and has several other permits pending. DEP met with Axiall and was considering options for adding some conditions to Gastar’s permits to try to prevent any problems.
Public disclosure of the situation and contact from Axiall on the issue prompted Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to schedule a meeting Oct. 23 with WV-DEP Secretary Randy Huffman to find out more. Chris Stadelman, Tomblin’s communications director, declined to say if the governor shares Axiall’s concerns about Gastar’s planned operations, but said Tomblin “decided it was important enough to be briefed about.”
“The WV-DEP is responsible for permitting issues and will continue to monitor activity related to that site,” Stadelman said Friday.
Details of the controversy emerged last week as Tomblin and the Commerce Department continue to review bids on the governor’s proposal to lease rights for private companies to drill and produce natural gas from state-owned reserves under portions of the Ohio River, including at two sites near the Natrium plant.
Environmental groups oppose the idea, and have urged the governor to drop his proposals. Stadelman did not indicate that the Axiall situation had given the governor any second thoughts about the Ohio River leasing proposals,
The Natrium plant leases with Gastar were agreed to by PPG Industries two years before PPG sold the facility to Axiall in January 2013. The plant’s operations date back to the 1940s, when the facility was opened to tap into a huge salt deposit located far beneath the surface. The plant uses salt mined from these subsurface deposits to produce chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen, as well as hydrochloric acid and calcium hyperchloride.
Hilbert, Axiall’s engineer, testified that the Hunter Triad incident “demonstrates the presence of a highly conductive zone in the Marcellus Shale that allowed frack fluid under very high pressure to travel through the Marcellus Shale from Triad Hunter’s wells, under the Ohio River” to the Natrium plant. This, Hilbert said, provided evidence of “a preexisting natural high conductivity path” that allowed for “communication between Triad Hunter’s natural gas wells and” the Natrium plant’s brine wells.
Engelder testified that Gastar’s wells could pose a similar “risk” to the Natrium facility, and recommended a “first-class” three-dimensional seismic study be conducted to examine that possibility. Axiall wanted the judge to order such a study, but Gastar argued that “potential” or “possible” risks were not enough to warrant a “sweeping, mandatory injunction.”
- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141025/GZ01/141029437/1101#sthash.759IikPI.dpuf
WV Mountain Party State Executive Committee Resolved to Ban Hydrofracking; Issues Clarification Regarding Candidate Statements
The Mountain Party State Executive Committee unanimously passed a resolution calling for the banning of hydrofracking.
Please be advised that statements by individual candidates made during their campaigns may or may not reflect the ideals of the party platform. To be specific, any individual candidate who has implied that the Mountain Party is in favor of hydrofracking is in error.
The Mountain Party has been very clear regarding its stance on hydrofracking for quite some time. Since 2009, Mountain Party leaders have been working with individual citizens and landowners concerning the adverse effect of hydrofracking on citizens health and on the quality of our air and water.
Mountain Party Chair Emeritus Charlotte Pritt has published a number of articles concerning the many that hazards hydrofracking poses on our communities, especially regarding radioactive waste from hydrofracking the Marcellus.
The Mountain Party is the only Political Party in West Virginia that has taken a strong stance on the dangers posed by the Extreme Extraction of fossil fuels, including both hydrofracking and mmountain top removal.
Please see the entire Resolution on the web-site for specific reasons as to why it was passed unanimously, and full details about what the Executive Committee intends to do about it.