Seeking Shale Clarity in Pennsylvania

Europe has numerous shale reserves with the potential to supply marketable volumes of natural gas.

Markus Wailand, a film producer from Vienna, recently spent 10 days interviewing people involved with Marcellus drilling in Pennsylvania for what he called Austria’s version of “60 Minutes.”

On Tuesday — his final day in the United States — Wailand chartered a small plane out of the Wilkes-Barre airport to fly him over Susquehanna and Bradford counties, so he could see for himself the impact of drilling on the landscape.

Austria has moderate shale reserves, Wailand said, but is unlikely to challenge Poland, which is expected to be the shale gas powerhouse in Europe. Nevertheless, citizens are beginning to take an interest and wondering what to expect.

An executive of Austria’s largest oil and gas company said last year he was sure his company could resolve the issue of disposing the tainted water from drilling and added, “We have to be more careful here than in the U.S.”

The expertise in drilling for shale gas is largely American, and major companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have begun to explore possible European shale reserves.

The focus is on Poland, which harbors what are expected to be the most productive shale gas reserves on the continent and where environmental restrictions are more lax than elsewhere in Europe.

The development of shale gas in the United States and Europe has the potential to transform not only world energy markets but world politics.

Europe gets nearly 30 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Successful development of shale reserves could reduce that by more than half in the next 30 years.

Poland imports more than 60 percent of its natural gas from Russia, but if predictions of its shale reserves prove true, it could nearly double the proven reserves of the European Union and be self-sufficient for decades.

From the perspective of 1,500 feet, the drilling in the northern tier resembles a chess board. Multiacre rectangular well pads interrupt the landscape with geometric regularity. Some have derricks rising from their center. Some are crowded with brightly colored square metal tanks in preparation for — or in the wake of — fracking. Most are empty.

Near Towanda in Bradford County, construction is under way on a pipeline to connect the pads where wells have been drilled so the gas can be taken to market.

It’s not as concentrated as he expected, Wailand said.

There’s usually more than a mile between the pads.

But in forested areas, with the combination of well pads and pipelines, the fragmentation could be stark.

Wailand said Austria has forests, too. Nearly half the country is wooded.

It’s an impact Wailand hadn’t considered until looking down from the sky on mountains of lush green trees as yet unbroken by drilling.

Source: PennLive.com

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