American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015 - 145

ConventionCoverage: Kentucky Oil & Gas Association
science-based research and fact. He indicated it was expanding to cover all Appalachian Basin energy production.
"You never are going change some
peoples' minds," Gardner posed. "Energy
poverty in the world is a big issue. If we
can expand the amount of energy available
to worldwide society, it is going to raise
the standard of living. No one talks about
the health benefits of energy utilization;
they talk about the small amount of (negative) health impacts from localized activities."

Biodegradation
Nature may provide a way of remediating spills of the organic additives used
in hydraulic fracturing fluids, offered
Katie Heyob, a master's candidate at
Ohio State University working with Dr.
Paula Mouser, a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering. In a discussion of university research, she pointed out that
most of the 1 percent of chemical additives
in fracturing fluids used to inhibit corrosion
or decrease friction were organic-based-
some are alcohols, glycols or polymers.
A U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency report on spills related to hydraulic
fracturing indicates most come from flowback or produced water leaking from
surface storage facilities or well equipment,
Heyob said. The Mouser Laboratory research examines how chemicals degrade
naturally in surface and shallow subsurface
conditions. She said less microbial activity
could be possible if a spill occurred
deeper in the ground, where there was

Operators must work with media sources
and responsible environmental groups
to change public perceptions about industry practices such as hydraulic fracturing, J. Steven Gardner, president and
chief executive officer with ESCI LLC,
suggests at the Kentucky Oil & Gas Association's annual convention, held June
14-16 in Lexington, Ky.

Brandon Nuttall (left), a geologist
with the Kentucky Geological Survey, visits with Andrew McNeill,
executive director of the Kentucky
Oil & Gas Association, before his
talk at the association's annual
meeting, held in Lexington, Ky.

lower overall bioattenuation potential resulting from lack of key nutrients and
lower numbers of microbes inhabiting
the rock.
The university research team examined
multiple questions, Heyob reported: how
solid media such as soils and sandstone
affected biodegradation, how fracturing
fluids degraded in the presence/absence of
oxygen, how salinity affected biodegradation, and how a variety of microbial communities degraded the fracturing fluids.
The university team determined that
activated sludge microorganisms degraded
the organic compounds in a synthetic
fracturing fluid under aerobic conditions.
Heyob noted the experiments showed
that a large buildup of acetone was common in the fracturing fluid treatments.
Isopropanol typically degrades to acetone,
but she said the evidence suggested the
acetone was coming from a different
parent compound as well.
In a separate experiment conducted
by Heyob, a synthetic fracturing fluid
and two specific chemical additives were
studied: a revert flow stimulation surfactant
and a corrosion inhibitor. Heyob said
that because the two additives were less
complex as an organic mixture and contained organics that were potentially easier
for soil and groundwater microbes to attack, they were expected to degrade faster
than the complex fracturing fluid under
anaerobic conditions. However, the fracturing fluid had the fastest degradation
rate and the most overall organic carbon
degradation at the end of 50 days.
"It is promising that microbial communities are very capable of degrading
these compounds in our synthetic frac-

turing fluid," she said. "Under surface
and shallow subsurface conditions, the
rate of degradation is pretty fast, within
35 days."
Heyob concluded that this research
could lead to developing additives for
fracturing fluids that were more "green"
or had higher biodegradation potential.
"Many spills are very small, but should
a spill occur, you could add a compound
such as acetate, which has been used as
an amendment in contaminated aquifers
to spark microbial growth. It could enhance
the biodegradation of other, more recalcitrant compounds," she posed. "(Developing a hydraulic fracturing fluid) is a
constant balance of limiting the use of
hazardous chemicals in the fluids, while
also not adding extremely biodegradable
chemicals that might lead to microbial
fouling down hole."
Kentucky Activity
In his update on well operations across
the commonwealth, Brandon Nuttall, a
geologist with the Kentucky Geological
Survey, highlighted industry interest in
three commonwealth plays: the New Albany Shale, Berea Sandstone and
Rogersville Shale.
Production in the New Albany Shale
became interesting in 2011, when initial
completion reports for several western
Kentucky wells indicated gas. But, Nuttall
said, a year later, revised completion reports
listed them as oil wells. Those wells were
completed at the top of the Grassy Creek
member of the New Albany Shale, which,
he said, may act as a reservoir rock.
SEE INDUSTRY PAGE 150

AUGUST 2015 145

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