American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017 - 121

the balance has increased since then, he
continued, the fund still contains only
enough money to plug about 300 of the
remaining abandoned wells.
According to Burton, TDEC is weighing
the possibility of addressing the deficit by
raising the bond on landowner-owned
wells. The current $500 bond is simply
not enough to adequately deal with the
wells, he said, adding that that a rulemaking hearing is possible later this year.
TOGA also heard from Stephen
Williams with the Tennessee Valley Authority's Rights of Way division, who
discussed how gathering lines, transmission lines and pipelines interact with
TVA's network of assets and how proper
notification protects the safety of landowners, workers and citizens.
In an effort to improve the review of
right of way permits, Williams told attendees
that TVA had posted all necessary forms
and applications online. Typical projects
take about 30-45 days to review, he said.
As for the utility's attitude about project
approval, Williams stated that the utility
was not trying to deny access, but instead,
promote safety by staying informed about
all infrastructure along rights of way.

Geologic Time
Although East Tennessee is the state's
only region with oil and gas production,
University of Tennessee-Knoxville Professor of Structural Geology & Tectonics
professor Bob Hatcher suggested the middle of the state held promise for additional
undiscovered hydrocarbons.
Considering both new and old geological information, Hatcher told TOGA
that unconformities in the central portion
of the state provided a "fairway and potential plays that could increase the overall
oil and gas production in Tennessee.
"If operators conducted additional exploration in the southeastern, eastern and
western flanks of the Nashville Dome
and western Cumberland Plateau, it should
increase overall state production," Hatcher
predicted.
Meanwhile, TOGA President Gary
Bible, President of Cougar Dome LLC
in Helenwood, Tn., told attendees about
innovations in geographic information
system and global positioning system
technologies, and how they could help
producers make and exploit better maps.
"With all the data that is now publically
available, combined with the incredible

software-some of which is free and opensourced on the internet-the map-making
possibilities are nearly endless," Bible
marveled.

Board Of Directors Meeting
TOGA's Board of Directors met after
the technical sessions on the convention's
concluding day. The agenda included
suggested appointments to the state's
newly-created Energy Policy Council,
well bonding and directors' nominations.
The board's first business was to reelect Bible, Kurlan Barbosa of Enrema
LLC and Brint Camp, production consultant, to two-year board terms and reappoint Anne Byrd of Bill Ray Oil Producers to serve as TOGA's secretarytreasurer.
Next, the board determined Bible
would serve as the oil and gas representative on the new Tennessee Energy
Policy Council.
Finally, the board discussed TDEC's
potential rule making on well bonding
and its possible implications for the industry. However, the directors did not
decide whether to support or oppose the
action before the meeting adjourned. r

Drinking Water Not Harmed By Drilling

WASHINGTON-Natural gas well
drilling in the Eagle Ford, Fayetteville
and Haynesville shales is not a significant
source of methane or benzene found in
drinking water wells located near drilling
operations, according to a study released
by the U.S. Geological Survey.
USGS says it examined 116 domestic
and public-supply wells in Arkansas,
Louisiana and Texas that were located
as close as 360 feet to unconventional
oil and gas wells. While the agency says
it detected methane in 91 percent of the
wells, only 1 percent of those had methane
concentrations higher than the 10 milligrams-per-liter threshold set by the Department of the Interior Office of Surface
Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement
to protect against explosive risk. Most of
the methane detected was from naturally
occurring microbial sources at shallow
depths rather than deep shale gas, USGS
says.
Importantly, the service says, this is
the first study of these areas to systematically determine the age of the groundwater
in relation to the presence of benzene
and methane in wells near unconventional
oil and gas production. USGS says it pioneered the ability to determine the age
of groundwater.

"Understanding the occurrence of
methane and benzene in groundwater in
the context of groundwater age allows
us to assess whether the hydrocarbons
were from surface or subsurface sources,"
explains Peter McMahon, USGS hydrologist and study lead. "The ages indicate
groundwater moves relatively slowly in
these aquifers. Decades or longer may
be needed to fully assess the effects of
unconventional oil and gas production
activities on the quality of groundwater
used for drinking water."
USGS says benzene was detected in
8 percent of the wells sampled, although
the highest concentration was nearly 40
times lower than the federal standard of
five micrograms per liter for benzene in
drinking water. Benzene was detected
about 1.5 to 8.0 times more frequently in
the study area groundwater than in national
data sets of benzene in groundwater, the
agency observes.
Groundwater in the Louisiana and
Texas study areas typically entered the
aquifers several thousand years ago, USGS
points out. It says nearly all the benzene
detected in those areas occurred in old
groundwater, indicating it was from subsurface sources such as natural hydrocarbon
migration or leaking oil and gas wells.

In Arkansas, USGS continues, groundwater was much younger-typically less
than 40 years old. Benzene was detected
in one sample of young groundwater in
Arkansas that could be associated with a
surface release associated with unconventional oil and gas production activities,
it says.
The article, "Methane and Benzene in
Drinking-Water Wells Overlying the Eagle
Ford, Fayetteville, and Haynesville Shale
Hydrocarbon Production Areas," is published online in the journal Environmental
Science & Technology, and may be accessed
at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7boo746.
r

Coming In August

Part II of the summer series looks
at how combining multilateral
drilling technology with multistage
hydraulic fracturing could transform
unconventional reservoir development. Guest authors also present a
big data analytical approach that integrates geology, geophysics and engineering to improve shale drilling
and completion performance.
JULY 2017 121

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.7b00746

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017

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