Sunday, August 22, 2021


How a simple crystal could help pave the way to full-scale quantum computing

New research tackles a core problem for quantum computers: scaling





STORY BY
The Conversation




Vaccine and drug development, artificial intelligence, transport and logistics, climate science — these are all areas that stand to be transformed by the development of a full-scale quantum computer. And there has been explosive growth in quantum computing investment over the past decade.

Yet current quantum processors are relatively small in scale, with fewer than 100 qubits — the basic building blocks of a quantum computer. Bits are the smallest unit of information in computing, and the term qubits stems from “quantum bits”.


While early quantum processors have been crucial for demonstrating the potential of quantum computing, realizing globally significant applications will likely require processors with upwards of a million qubit

Our new research tackles a core problem at the heart of scaling up quantum computers: how do we go from controlling just a few qubits, to controlling millions? In research published today in Science Advances, we reveal a new technology that may offer a solution.

What exactly is a quantum computer?


Quantum computers use qubits to hold and process quantum information. Unlike the bits of information in classical computers, qubits make use of the quantum properties of nature, known as “superposition” and “entanglement”, to perform some calculations much faster than their classical counterparts.

Unlike a classical bit, which is represented by either 0 or 1, a qubit can exist in two states (that is, 0 and 1) at the same time. This is what we refer to as a superposition state.

Demonstrations by Google and others have shown even current, early-stage quantum computers can outperform the most powerful supercomputers on the planet for a highly specialized (albeit not particularly useful) task — reaching a milestone we call quantum supremacy.

Google’s quantum computer, built from superconducting electrical circuits, had just 53 qubits and was cooled to a temperature close to -273℃ in a high-tech refrigerator. This extreme temperature is needed to remove heat, which can introduce errors to the fragile qubits. While such demonstrations are important, the challenge now is to build quantum processors with many more qubits.

Major efforts are underway at UNSW Sydney to make quantum computers from the same material used in everyday computer chips: silicon. A conventional silicon chip is thumbnail-sized and packs in several billion bits, so the prospect of using this technology to build a quantum computer is compelling.
The control problem

In silicon quantum processors, information is stored in individual electrons, which are trapped beneath small electrodes at the chip’s surface. Specifically, the qubit is coded into the electron’s spin. It can be pictured as a small compass inside the electron. The needle of the compass can point north or south, which represents the 0 and 1 states.

To set a qubit in a superposition state (both 0 and 1), an operation that occurs in all quantum computations, a control signal must be directed to the desired qubit. For qubits in silicon, this control signal is in the form of a microwave field, much like the ones used to carry phone calls over a 5G network. The microwaves interact with the electron and cause its spin (compass needle) to rotate.

Currently, each qubit requires its own microwave control field. It is delivered to the quantum chip through a cable running from room temperature down to the bottom of the refrigerator at close to -273℃. Each cable brings heat with it, which must be removed before it reaches the quantum processor.

At around 50 qubits, which is state-of-the-art today, this is difficult but manageable. Current refrigerator technology can cope with the cable heat load. However, it represents a huge hurdle if we’re to use systems with a million qubits or more.

The solution is ‘global’ control


An elegant solution to the challenge of how to deliver control signals to millions of spin qubits was proposed in the late 1990s. The idea of “global control” was simple: broadcast a single microwave control field across the entire quantum processor.

Voltage pulses can be applied locally to qubit electrodes to make the individual qubits interact with the global field (and produce superposition states).

It’s much easier to generate such voltage pulses on-chip than it is to generate multiple microwave fields. The solution requires only a single control cable and removes obtrusive on-chip microwave control circuitry.

For more than two decades global control in quantum computers remained an idea. Researchers could not devise a suitable technology that could be integrated with a quantum chip and generate microwave fields at suitably low powers.

In our work, we show that a component known as a dielectric resonator could finally allow this. The dielectric resonator is a small, transparent crystal which traps microwaves for a short period of time.

The trapping of microwaves, a phenomenon known as resonance, allows them to interact with the spin qubits longer and greatly reduces the power of microwaves needed to generate the control field. This was vital to operating the technology inside the refrigerator.

In our experiment, we used the dielectric resonator to generate a control field over an area that could contain up to four million qubits. The quantum chip used in this demonstration was a device with two qubits. We were able to show the microwaves produced by the crystal could flip the spin state of each one.
The path to a full-scale quantum computer

There is still work to be done before this technology is up to the task of controlling a million qubits. For our study, we managed to flip the state of the qubits, but not yet produce arbitrary superposition states.

Experiments are ongoing to demonstrate this critical capability. We’ll also need to further study the impact of the dielectric resonator on other aspects of the quantum processor.

That said, we believe these engineering challenges will ultimately be surmountable — clearing one of the greatest hurdles to realizing a large-scale spin-based quantum computer.

This article by Jarryd Pla, Senior Lecturer in Quantum Engineering, UNSW, and Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor in Quantum Engineering, UNSW is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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IT'S NOT AN ELECTION ITS AN APPOINTMENT
Fort McMurray board 'appalled' Laila Goodridge appointed to run for Conservatives in federal election


Goodridge resigned as UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche earlier this month so she could run federally.

 Yurdiga won the 2019 election with 79.9 per cent of the vote.

Author of the article: Ashley Joannou
Publishing date: Aug 20, 2021 • 
Laila Goodridge. File photo

The board of the Fort McMurray-Cold Lake Electoral District Association says it does not support or recognize the appointment of Laila Goodridge to run for the Conservatives in that riding this federal election.

In a statement posted online Friday, the association’s board says it was “blindsided” by the decision by the Conservative Party of Canada to appoint Goodridge as its candidate without running a nomination contest.

Goodridge replaced former MP David Yurdiga who is not seeking re-election due to private medical issues. Yurdiga told party Leader Erin O’Toole his decision on Aug. 14, one day before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a snap election for Sept. 20.

The statement, which is not signed by individual board members, says the board had multiple “outstanding and credible candidates” interested in seeking the nomination within hours of being told about Yurdiga’s resignation and was preparing to hold a contest in as little as one week.

The board says it was “appalled” and “blindsided” to find out that someone had been appointed by the party.

The Conservative Party of Canada’s rules and procedures for candidate nominations allow national officials to alter or suspend the rules in the event a general election is called. Any such decision is final.

The local board says there was no consultation from the party with the board on any level.

“The federal party has failed to not only consult its conservative membership and the board, but has also grossly failed its conservative values and principles,” the statement says.

“It has been made abundantly clear that your voice does not matter despite the party continually promoting itself as a grassroots organization.”

Neither Goodridge, the association, nor a spokesperson for the Conservative Party of Canada responded to requests for comment by deadline.

Goodridge resigned as UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche earlier this month so she could run federally. In a Facebook message on Thursday she thanked “the hundreds of residents of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake” who signed the paperwork required to get her name on the federal ballot.

The federal riding of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake was created in 2012 from portions of existing ridings. Yurdiga won the 2019 election with 79.9 per cent of the vote.
Josephine Baker to be first Black woman in France's Pantheon


Issued on: 22/08/2021 - 
US-born Josephine Baker poses in Paris in the 1920s: she went on to fight against the Nazis and later against racism AFP


Paris (AFP)

Josephine Baker, the famed French-American dancer, singer and actress who fought in the French resistance during WWII and later battled racism, will become the first Black woman to enter France's Pantheon mausoleum.

The remains of American-born Baker will be laid to rest in the hallowed Parisian monument on November 30, an aide to President Emmanuel Macron told AFP on Sunday, confirming a report in the Le Parisien newspaper.

"Pantheonisation is built over a long period of time," the aide said.

Baker will become just the sixth woman to join the around 80 great national figures of French history in the Pantheon after Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust and fought for abortion rights, entered in 2018.

Jennifer Guesdon, part of a group campaigning for Baker's induction that includes one of the dancer's sons, said they met with Macron on July 21.

"When the president said yes, (it was a) great joy," she said.

"It's a yes!" Macron said after the July meeting, Le Parisien reported.

The Baker family have been requesting her induction since 2013, with a petition gathering about 38,000 signatures.

Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, pictured in Paris in 1949 - AFP/File

"She was an artist, the first Black international star, a muse of the cubists, a resistance fighter during WWII in the French army, active alongside Martin Luther King in the civil rights fight," the petition says.

Guesdon said the campaign has "made people discover the undertakings of Josephine Baker, who was only known to some as an international star, a great artist," Guesdon said.

But "she belongs in the Pantheon because she was a resistance fighter," she added.

- From Missouri to Paris -

Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, came from a poor background and was married twice by the age of 15. She then ran away from home to join a vaudeville troupe.

She quickly caught the eye of a producer, who sent her to Paris where at the age of 19 she became the star of the hugely popular "La Revue Negre", which helped popularise jazz and African-American culture in France.

Baker salutes after receiving the Legion d'honneur in 1961 - AFP/File

She became the highest-paid performer in the Paris music hall scene during the roaring twenties.

On November 30, 1937, she married Jean Lion, allowing her to get French nationality. She would go on to divorce him and remarry twice more, adopting 12 children along the way.

In 1939, she joined the French resistance movement, passing on information written on her musical scores.

She later went on a mission to Morocco and toured the resistance movement, being appointed a lieutenant in the French air force's female auxillary corps.

She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, a Resistance medal, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur.

"I only had one thing in mind... to help France," she told Ina archives.

Another member of the campaign group, Pascal Bruckner, said Baker "is a symbol of a France that is not racist, contrary to what some media groups say".

French US-born dancer and singer Josephine Baker and French conductor Jo Bouillon sit at their wedding mass in 1947 in the chapel of the Milandes Castle in Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, Dordogne, France. - AFP

"Josephine Baker is a true anti-racist, a true anti-fascist," Bruckner told AFP.

Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot tweeted that Baker was "a valiant and generous woman", adding that "we owe her this honour".

The Pantheon is a memorial complex for the legendary national figures in France's history from the worlds of politics, culture and science.

Only the president can decide on moving personalities to the former church, whose grand columns and domed roof were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.

laf-jri-ggy-mlb/dl/pbr

© 2021 AFP
Fossil Fuels Far From Extinct: Oil and Gas Companies See Record Revenues

Newsfile Corp.
August 12, 2021·

Point Roberts, Washington and Delta, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 12, 2021) - Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering oil and gas stocks releases a special report featuring InPlay Oil Corp. (TSX: IPO) (OTCQX: IPOOF), looking at the stream of record breaking revenues from the oil and gas industry following COVID-19 lockdowns and surprisingly, amidst global concerns of climate change and fossil fuel emissions.

Read the full article on Investorideas.com
https://www.investorideas.com/news/2021/energy/08120Fossil-Fuels.asp

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) recently released a new report titled, Canada's Natural Gas and Oil Emissions: Ongoing Reductions, Demonstrable Improvement.


The report, which lays out the means to a lower-carbon future through innovation and new technology, and illustrates the industry's proven track record of lowering emissions-intensity, is the first in a series of planned Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures.

Ben Brunnen, Vice President, Oil Sands, Fiscal & Economic Policy commented, "Canada's natural gas and oil industry has a track record of being one of the most transparent around the world. This report raises the bar even higher, positioning the industry as a leader in voluntarily reporting the collective emissions performance of our industry, and should be a challenge for other jurisdictions to do the same."

Brunnen continued saying, "The international comparable data shows Canada is a good performer when it comes to emissions intensity but also that we're continuously getting better. The key to our future will be the ability of our industry to quickly advance new technologies to continue reducing GHG intensity, keeping Canada a global supplier of choice."

InPlay Oil Corp. (TSX: IPO) (OTCQX: IPOOF) reflected this upward trend for Canadian oil and gas having recently announced its financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2021. InPlay's condensed unaudited interim financial statements and notes, as well as Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") for the three and six months ended June 30, 2021 will be available at www.sedar.com and the Company's website at www.inplayoil.com.

From the news: The company achieved record quarterly production of 5,386 boe/d (68% light oil and NGLs), an increase of 71% compared to 3,154 boe/d (66% light oil and NGLs) in the second quarter of 2020 and an increase of 8% compared to 4,965 boe/d (70% light oil and NGLs) in the first quarter of 2021.

InPlay also continued new well production performance in excess of forecasts with the 3.0 net Extended Reach Horizontal ("ERH") wells drilled in the first quarter of 2021 on our newly acquired Pembina asset having a combined average 120 day initial production ("IP") rate of 1,390 boe/d (74% light oil and NGLs) based on field estimates.

This led to the company realizing a quarterly record operating income and operating income profit margin of $16.2 million and 64% respectively compared to $0.3 million and 6% in the second quarter of 2020 and $11.9 million and 60% in the first quarter of 2021.

From the news: The Company's decision to reinvest in the Pembina Cardium has been extremely successful as the results have exceeded expectations since they resumed drilling in this area in late 2019. The three 100% Pembina Cardium 1.5 mile wells drilled in the first quarter of 2021 on lands acquired in the fourth quarter of 2020 have performed exceptionally to date. These wells continue to flow without artificial lift, have produced an average of approximately 55,000 boe per well (73% light oil and NGLs) over their first 120 days and have paid out in three to four months. Their production rates have continued to substantially exceed both their internal forecasted production volumes and reserves assigned to these locations in our December 31, 2020 independent reserve report.

From the news: InPlay's strong results in the first half of 2021 and continuing in the second half of 2021 from the Pembina drills have allowed the Company to increase its 2021 annual average production guidance to between 5,500 and 5,750 boe/d (68% light oil and NGLs) from our previous guidance of 5,100 to 5,400 boe/d (69% light oil and NGLs). The drilling program for the remainder of the year has not changed from drilling 5.0 net operated horizontal wells.

From the news: InPlay is expected to have lower debt exiting 2021 than that previously forecasted, close to our pre-pandemic 2019 debt levels. InPlay's fourth quarter 2021 annualized net debt to earnings before interest, taxes and depletion ("EBITDA") ratio(5) is now forecast to be 0.7 to 0.9 times, the lowest in our history.

Capital for 2021 is anticipated to be $29 million resulting in forecast AFF increased to an annual record $44.5 - $47.5 million and forecast Free Adjusted Funds Flow ("FAFF") increased to $15.5 - $18.5 million, a 35 - 39% FAFF yield which will be used to pay down debt. Quarterly AFF in both the third and fourth quarter of 2021 is expected to exceed the AFF generated during the first half of 2021.

From the news: InPlay, like many others in the space, continues to benefit from record levels of production being sold into one of the strongest commodity pricing environments that have been seen in years. West Texas Intermediate ("WTI") prices remained strong in the second quarter of 2021 averaging $66.07 USD/bbl compared to $27.83 USD/bbl in the COVID-19 impacted second quarter of 2020. Strong natural gas prices continued in the second quarter of 2021 with AECO daily index prices averaging $2.93/GJ compared to $1.89/GJ in the second quarter of 2020. Realized NGL prices also averaged $30.27/bbl compared to $11.66/bbl for the second quarter of 2020.

The Company's 2021 guidance is based on a current future commodity price curve with an annual average WTI price of US $64.50/bbl, $3.35/GJ AECO and estimated foreign exchange of $0.80 CDN/USD.

Tourmaline Oil Corp. also recently announced their financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2021.

They saw second quarter 2021 cash flow of $1.89 per diluted share, record free cash flow of $343.9 million, and average production of 410,339 boepd, exceeding the high end of expectations despite challenging operating conditions in June's heat wave.

From the news: The updated five-year plan, at current strip pricing, delivers $1.8 billion of FCF in 2022 and $7.0 billion over the full five-year duration of the plan. The 2022 free cash flow equates to over $5.50 per basic share, a FCF yield of 16% and reduces the 2022 total payout ratio to 48%.

The Company now expects to achieve year-end 2021 net debt of approximately $1 billion (less than 0.4 times debt to cash flow, and less than one times annual FCF). As at July 15, 2021, Tourmaline's Topaz equity ownership was valued at $939.7 million, which essentially offsets the estimated year-end net debt.

From the news: With incremental volumes on the GTN Malin/PG&E system and the Company's recently announced Gulf Coast LNG pathway in 2023, Tourmaline will have 905 mmcfpd exposed to export markets on firm, long-term transport agreements at exit 2023. Tourmaline's largest export market, PG&E California, is currently trading at $5.50/mmbtu (US).

Independent oil and gas producer Northern Oil and Gas Inc. per share of 92 cents, reported second-quarter 2021 adjusted earnings, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 69 cents and significantly improving from the year-ago profit of 21 cents. The outperformance can be attributed to higher commodity prices and better-than-expected production.

The company's oil and gas sales of $225.7 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $182 million. The top line also skyrocketed from the year-ago figure of $20.7 million.

Northern, which instituted a 50% dividend hike ahead of its earnings release, saw its adjusted EBITDA more than double to $132.8 million.

This is in line with Marathon Oil Corporation, who reported second-quarter 2021 adjusted net income per share of 22 cents, also beating the Zacks Consensus Estimateof 18 cents. In the year-ago period, the company had incurred a loss of 60 cents.

Marathon Oil's bottom line was favorably impacted by stronger liquids realizations and better-than-expected domestic production. Precisely, volumes in the United States came in at 283,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d), beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 272,000 BOE/d.

Marathon Oil reported revenues of $1.1 billion that jumped from the year-ago sales of $272 million but missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.4%. This was due to the lower-than-expected international segment production available for sale, which at 65,000 BOE/d fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3,000 BOE/d.

The company stuck to its $1 billion capital spending budget for 2021 and delivered a free cash flow of $420 million during the quarter.

"The notion that we can shut off a major, industrialized economy with the flick of a switch is patently unrealistic," Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney said, as quoted by CBC News, adding that giving up fossil fuels for a country with the geographical location-and climate-of Canada would come at a cost that will be measured in human lives.

Kenney went on to note that most of the world was dependent on fossil fuels, and there was "no credible way" to eliminate this dependence in the observable future.

"It is a utopian notion that we can suddenly end the use of hydrocarbon based energy," the Alberta Premier said. "The challenge is to shrink carbon and CO2 output, and Alberta is increasingly a world leader in that respect."

"The industry is confident that they have a place in the future of energy development. It's going to certainly be a different mix of energy sources going forward," according to Tristan Goodman, President of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, as quoted by the Financial Post. "Many of our businesses are entering the renewables space, so it's not an either or," he added.

As we all continue to face up to the harsh realities of the environmental impacts our modern industries are placing on the world, there is still a place for fossil fuels, even amidst movements towards renewable energy sources. As the world recovers from the manufacturing slow-downs and global supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19, fossil fuels may be on the rise for much longer than expected.


GREENWASHING
What Big Oil’s solar energy projects reveal about its climate strategy


PUBLISHED  MON, AUG 16 2021
Eric Rosenbaum@ERPROSE


KEY POINTS

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub says fossil fuels aren’t the problem. It’s carbon emissions.

For oil and gas companies to make that argument stick in a world increasingly skeptical of fossil fuel industry efforts to combat climate change, many climate technologies will have to be pursued.

One is solar power, with Oxy, EOG Resources, ExxonMobil and Chevron all adding to solar energy project deals in recent years.

Solar is not insignificant in lowering emissions from oil operations, but it is far from a de-carbonization strategy.



The oil and gas sector has been experimenting with solar power as a generation source for oil operations for decades, such as this Chevron (then ChevronTexaco) California project in 2003. As costs of solar come down and pressure intensifies on oil companies to cut emissions, more renewable energy will de deployed, but it may remain limited — in scope and effectiveness.
David McNew | Getty Images News | Getty Images


Oil and gas companies are working hard on their messaging in the climate change era. If it’s “code red for humanity” as the UN’s IPCC said last Monday in its latest dire climate report, it’s some sort of “code red” for the fossil fuels industry too, in terms of figuring out how to stay relevant, believable — and for the market, investable — in an era of carbon emissions reduction mandates from governments, regulators and shareholders.

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub took a stab at it earlier this year, saying fossil fuels aren’t the problem — it’s emissions. It follows that if fossil fuel companies can find ways to eliminate emissions, on a large enough scale, maybe they can convince shareholders and stakeholders that they are moving into the future in more sustainable way.


But there are big differences in emissions types and emissions reduction strategies. What oil and gas companies do to reduce emissions in their operations and supply chain are, in the end, a smaller part of the carbon reduction game than reducing what is known as Scope 3 emissions — for example, from the tailpipe of your car. Those Scope 3 emissions, by expert estimates, are responsible for the vast majority of carbon emissions from the energy industry.

Lowering carbon emissions profile of oil and gas drilling

Companies including ExxonMobil have begun to disclose Scope 3 emissions, but in terms of their efforts to reduce emissions, remain focused on their own operations. What oil and gas companies do to lower operational emissions, the energy used to power drilling and all the way to the trucks going to and from drilling sites, does matter. Though how much it matters is inevitably smaller in the grander scheme of carbon emissions reduction efforts.

“The electricity oil and gas companies use is a pretty small contributor to their carbon footprint,” said Chris Archer, head of Americas for Macquarie Capital’s Green Investment Group.

Occidental has been a leader in many of the new technology approaches to lowering the emissions profile of the oil and gas business. As Hollub told CNBC earlier this year, “The reality of a net-zero carbon barrel, it is possible, and we are doing things to make it possible. It’s not a goal on a sheet of paper.”

Occidental is working on multiple projects related to carbon sequestration, not just for its operations, but other heavy emitters in the industrial sector. A growing but smaller part of that new technology thinking for oil and gas operations, which is expected to see more development in the future, is solar energy — solar panel arrays spreading out in places like the Permian Basin to help lower the emissions profile of oil and gas operations.


Occidental already has a 16 megawatt solar farm in the Permian — the first large-scale solar project to directly power oil and gas operations in Texas — and Hollub told CNBC earlier this year “we will be doing more of that. We believe it will take everything, and we will add more solar over time.”
Oil and gas industry’s history with solar


Solar isn’t a new thing for oil and gas. Chevron had a project powering operations in the Kern oil field of California as far back as 2003, and BP even got into solar panel manufacturing for decades under Sir John Browne’s “Beyond Petroleum” mission (before solar manufacturing became mostly China’s game and most everyone else went bankrupt).

“This isn’t a brand new journey,” said Amy Chronis, leader of Deloitte’s US Oil, Gas & Chemicals team in Houston. “But it’s still early days to see broad-based carbon reductions.”

Now several of the European and U.S. majors are making major investments in renewable again, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, and all the big oil and gas companies have at least a few solar power projects, whether they developed them on their own or signed what are known as power purchase agreements with project developers, including ExxonMobil, which has added to its renewable energy portfolio in recent years.

It bought 500 megawatts of wind and solar in 2018 from Danish renewable energy company Orsted, the largest renewable deal ever signed by a U.S. major. Chevron signed its own 500 MW project last summer, with the energy generation to be split between the Permian, Argentina and Kazakhstan.

A lot of the renewable energy history within solar has been more fits and starts — and lower down the priority list —than consistent application to the business. Though, the pressure is mounting.

Benjamin Shattuck, research director for Americas upstream oil and gas at energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, said most of the companies he follows in the U.S. are still fairly early on in their journey to a carbon reduction model, but as environmental performance and ESG become more mainstream — he said ESG is top of agenda when he talks to oil CEOs lately —and more companies talk about net-zero targets and tie executive compensation to the goals, the situation is rapidly changing.

“Oxy is one of the companies helping to lead the conversation, between the Goldsmith solar plant [the 16 MW plant Hollub referenced] and longer-term carbon capture and storage, they are thinking about it from a bold standpoint, which is good to see. Everything points to it picking up and accelerating,” Shattuck said.
The Permian is well-suited to renewables


Places like the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico are well-suited to renewable energy, with lots of land and a regulatory framework favorable to project development, whether oil and gas or renewables, but the economics have to make sense. And increasingly, they do.

An oil pump operates in the Permian Basin oil field near Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Joe Raedle | Hulton Archive | Getty Images


Archer says these companies can have a much bigger impact on carbon reduction through carbon capture efforts and flaring reduction than by going into renewables for the power. But the Permian Basin is one of the best places in the U.S. to cite solar, with loads of cheap flat land and really good irradiance. “Today, solar, for lots of oil and gas is the economic choice versus diesel generators,” Archer said.

That implies solar and wind projects being developed may have been less about a focus on carbon reduction, in his view, than being driven by the power generation being economically competitive. And Archer said given how economic solar has become in places like the Permian, if oil and gas companies were serious about it as a de-carbonization strategy, we might have seen more of it already under development.
Never going to be oil’s carbon solution


No one is suggesting solar is oil’s solution. One or two solar plants, “won’t move the needle,” Shattuck said. But larger power purchase agreements and multiple projects across companies in the sector, isn’t insignificant either, in his view. “More operations need to be powered from renewables, whether they own the projects or are taking renewable generation from the grid,” Shattuck said.

It’s a complex process to attempt to make oil and gas drilling operations 100% renewable, from running the drilling rigs to generators and compressors and fracking trucks to get people to and from the field. The energy being used to prepare and drill new wells is greater than for existing wells, and these operations are not stationary either, moving around the Permian from West Texas to New Mexico with electric needs variable. In other words, if you build a solar plant in one area, you can’t just easily pick it up and move it to another where more wells are being focused on. That’s why Shattuck said we may see more oil and gas companies signing power purchase agreements with project developers.

“In some cases, that alleviates the capital risk,” he said.

But all the diesel that is used today — especially the more remote a drilling site is —does represent a wide range of power replacement opportunities.
The oil field is emissions reduction ‘low-hanging fruit’


Because Scope 3 emissions are the vast majority of emissions and the furthest from the oil and gas companies direct control — and maybe active interest in controlling, with ExxonMobil saying that while it will track Scope 3 it is really up to society and consumers to make their own energy choices — renewable energy in the fields is in a sense, the low-hanging fruit.

“Electrification of the oil field is important, and solar and wind can play a role, part of a larger puzzle that has to be solved. There isn’t a single solution today, that’s the theme,” Shattuck said. “It needs to be multi-technology for them.”

This won’t go over well with those ready to leave the fossil fuels economy behind, because the model is in effect augmenting what oil and gas companies are doing in the oil field rather than representing any full-scale pivot. It’s the emissions are the problem —not fossil fuels — of Hollub.

Building solar is not their solution. It’s good asset management with economic benefits on their existing assets. But it’s not a rubric through which they de-carbonize.
Chris Archer
MACQUARIE CAPITAL’S GREEN INVESTMENT GROUP


But that low-hanging fruit gives the companies a means to test the market, see how investors and stakeholders react, and going down the road of renewables, because it’s not what they have typically done in the past, is part of the effort that will be put into winning back investors in the years ahead.

“They need to find out what’s hitting the mark and what isn’t, and if Goldsmith [the Oxy solar project] is resonating well with investors, then maybe they do more,” Shattuck said.

The first net-zero oil barrel


Archer worries it is still more about issuing a press release than executing on significant change, and he is skeptical that these projects can change the image of these companies.

“When was the last time you bought something from Oxy? It’s not like you’re swayed as a consumer,” he said. “Building a 20 MW solar farm and issuing a press release won’t earn you many points. You need a bigger strategy and goals.”

But while the consumer at the gas pump may not think in those carbon-neutral barrel terms today, industrial buyers already do. “We have talked to companies producing natural gas and the off taker is a utility and that utility does care about the carbon footprint, about the gas burning in a power plant,” said Kate Hardin, executive director of the Deloitte Research Center for Energy & Industrials. “So maybe it is not as direct as a person, as the end user in retail, but companies buying the oil and gas may care.”

And that is exactly what happened in early 2021, when Oxy shipped its first-ever carbon-neutral barrel of oil to India, and issued a press release about it.

There are multiple business cases to make in the future that revolve around more of these deals, if on the margins, and that relate back to the value of more renewable energy generation in the fields. Oil and gas companies need to find new competitive advantages, and even if there is a case where the economics of a solar plant don’t work on their own, decreasing export risk could be another way to make the model productive.

“It will be interesting to watch that competition. It’s proof of concept work, really early on,” Shattuck said.

That work comes at time when the sector is focused more on capital discipline and budget cuts then spending, making it more difficult for oil and gas companies to pull the trigger on experiments with technology. One of the biggest questions for the future of the oil and gas industry is tied up in the question of how much renewable energy development it pursues — what percentage of the overall spending is earmarked for carbon emissions reduction.

“I don’t think it will be an insignificant amount. If they want to continue to have access to funding and capital they will have to continue with a variety of these technologies and strategies, and we will learn more about what’s most effective,” Shattuck said.

The oil and gas companies early work on solar implies they are learning and getting familiar with the technology, and it will stay in the mix, but other initiatives will be more material, in Archer’s view. “Building solar is not their solution. It’s good asset management with economic benefits on their existing assets. But it’s not a rubric through which they de-carbonize. But we will see more of it,” he said.

For a long time, the oil and gas industry could do no right when it came to cutting spending and running operations on a more conservative basis. But in recent years, the industry has been forced by investors to do just that. Now capital discipline is a top priority to stay in favor with investors.

Carbon reduction efforts, including renewable energy projects like solar, are a different mode of thinking than deciding on exploration spending, but there’s a similarity: the companies are leapfrogging each other in terms of targets and as technology gets rolled out, it will play a role in the sector players that investors decide on as the likely winners.

“It would be surprising if the budget line item is low,” Shattuck said.

Especially with oil and gas executive compensation packages now much more frequently designed to only go up if carbon emissions go down.
Hide and Seek: The Orphan Well Problem in America

The impact of orphan wells, both on the environment and on tightening budgets, is a growing concern in the industry. 

Boom times result in a vast uptick in wells drilled. 
In bust times, when companies disappear, the liability outlook for these probes gets murky and federal and state governments start looking for answers.

August 1, 2021
By Blake Wright
Journal of Petroleum Technology



Magnetic surveys are used to guide ground-based field research more effectively. In addition to location data that is not always precise, wells are often difficult to identify in the field due to being buried or concealed by vegetation. Source: National Energy Technology Laboratory.


It’s a problem as old as the industry itself. The initial oil rush in the late 1800s spread like wildfire through Pennsylvania, and by 1891 the state’s annual crude output had hit 31 million barrels, or 58% of the nation’s total oil production for that year. However, by the turn of the century the bloom was off the rose. Pennsylvania’s once-robust oil allure had been eclipsed by finds in Texas, California, and Oklahoma, each spawning its own regional oil booms. So why the history lesson? Because it’s important to understand the potential volume and impact of orphan wells in the US.

In the infancy of the industry, plugging-and-abandonment (P&A) techniques were crude at best, if anyone even went to the trouble. Worse still was the overall record keeping at the time. With oil booms around the country setting off races to harness as much black gold as possible, wells were being drilled at breakneck pace. Once these earliest wells were tapped of their commercial usefulness, operators moved on to the next. There was little-to-no oversight. No regulations. No standards. The result? Thousands, if not more, of scattered, undocumented wells.

“Back in the day, you have people drilling wells, and nobody’s keeping track of where the wells are drilled and who owns the wells,” said Daniel Raimi, fellow with Resource for the Future, an independent institution that conducts environmental, energy, and natural resource research. “The government’s not keeping track and has little to no regulation in place to ensure that operators safely decommission their assets at the end of their lives. As a result, you have wells that maybe produce for a couple of years, and then the owners walk away. Multiply that by a couple of hundred thousand and now you’ve got a problem.”

Today, there is plenty of oversight and regulation for the industry to leave abandoned wells in much better shape than those earliest probes. However, orphan wells are still a problem. To paint the clearest picture, it would be prudent to define what an orphan well is.

This is where we run into our first problem. Definitions can vary wildly from state to state and organization to organization. Some lump all abandoned, unplugged wells into their counts as orphan wells. Others count all idle wells. However, for the sake of clarity we will define orphan wells as those nonproducing, idle wells whose ownership is unknown. By that definition it is safe to say that many of the nation’s earliest wells fit that criteria.

In more modern times, orphans result from idle wells whose owner goes belly-up prior to any P&A work. In most of these cases, bonds are employed to help offset the cost of plugging these wells. However, while they vary state to state, most bonding minimums do not cover the full cost of abandonment and remediation, if needed.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, there are about 2 million unplugged, abandoned oil and gas wells scattered across the US. Other experts place the number higher; some believe it is lower. Some researchers believe as many as half of those could be orphan wells. A survey by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission in 2018 put the range of orphaned and idle wells at around 560,000 to 1.1 million. Again, abandoned doesn’t always mean orphaned. One fact that can be extrapolated from the data gathered to date is that no one knows for sure just how many orphaned wells are out there. But that is changing.


Documented and estimated undocumented orphaned oil and gas wells in the US. Source: Columbia University CGEP report.



The Hunt


Researchers like Natalie Pekney have dedicated about a decade’s worth of field work trying to locate, chronicle, and sample the potential hazards from the orphan wells across the US. Pekney is an environmental engineer with the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) who has conducted field work in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, her home state and in many ways ground zero for the orphan well issue. She and her team used aerial magnetic survey techniques to pinpoint potential orphan wells by identifying the metal well casings. A 2017 study of the Hillman State Park location, west of Pittsburgh in southwestern Pennsylvania, discovered more magnetic well readings than previously reported in the area’s well count database.

“We started doing this work at least 10 years ago,” said Pekney. “We had a team that was perfecting the approach of using aerial magnetic techniques for finding wells. They would fly the survey and then go out on the ground and check those locations to verify if there was or was not a well there. They were noticing sometimes at these wells they could see bubbling, or you could smell a strong hydrocarbon smell. So just anecdotally, one could assume that some of them were still leaking. Then we had a thought to go out and measure how much, so we’ve been doing the emissions measurements since 2015 or so.”

Over time, the lab released its magnetic well-location technology to the private sector, which now employs sensor-equipped drones for much of the survey work. Now the team focuses more on the methane-emissions work. The group was in the throes of conducting measurement studies in Kentucky when COVID-19 sidelined the effort.

“We’re just now making plans to go back there and try to complete that work,” said Pekney. “The same thing in New York. We had plans to go out there and we had to put those off because of the pandemic. We’re currently trying to start our fieldwork efforts back up now that a lot of the travel restrictions and such have been relaxed.”

Pekney said they really had no expectations of what they might find once they started tracking emissions. With no previously published data on the subject, they had nothing on which to base a guess. Ultimately, in the context of greenhouse gas emissions from all US oil and gas sources, estimated emissions from abandoned wells is but a fraction of the total. The Hillman State Park survey took samples from 31 wells (22 above ground, unplugged and nine buried). The average emissions rate for the aboveground wells was 0.70 kg of CH4 per well per day.

Methane emissions are also a hot topic in political circles. Methane has more the 80-times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere, making it public enemy number one in the fight against climate change and global warming.

“It’s not huge, but at the same time, it’s kind of a correctable problem in a sense because these wells, generally the high-emitting ones have not been plugged, and plugging is effective at eliminating or decreasing emissions,” said Pekney.

Over the course of the next few years, Pekney believes her group can assist states by helping with plugging prioritization—identifying the “super-emitters” and getting those dealt with first.


GPS-enabled computers assist researchers on the ground in finding and geolocating abandoned wells, such as the one pictured here. Source: NETL.



The Answer?


Both state and federal officials have been active in recent months regarding the plugging of orphan wells. Several bills are floating around at the federal level that would aim to put workers sidelined by the pandemic back to work plugging these wells.

Senator Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) The Oil and Gas Bonding Reform and Orphaned Well Remediation Act is aimed at cleaning up tens of thousands of orphaned wells across the nation and reforming the bonding system. The REGROW Act, sponsored by Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) would budget more than $4.6 billion to put skilled energy workers back to work cleaning up these sites, with the goal of plugging every documented orphan well in the country.

“Safety and environmental protection are top priorities for our industry, and we operate under strict standards and practices to ensure that American energy is produced responsibly from start to finish,” said Frank Macchiarola, American Petroleum Institute’s senior vice president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs. “Our industry complies with all existing state and federal requirements for abandoned wells and reclaiming wells sites, and we will continue to support new efforts, like those outlined in the bipartisan REGROW Act, to plug these wells and further reduce methane emissions.”

Roughly $8 billion has been given out to states by the federal government for mine-reclamation projects over the past four decades. President Joe Biden’s recently announced $2.3-trillion infrastructure plan would earmark $16 billion toward the cleanup and plugging of old oil wells and mines, a significant step up in investment for orphan well remediation.

“Society is bearing a lot of the costs right now because of things like water pollution and methane emissions,” said Raimi. “That is costing all of us something. It’s just difficult to measure. There are some proposals at the federal level to inject dollars into state plugging programs. That’s a helpful first step, but it certainly doesn’t address the magnitude of the problem.

“From my perspective,” he continued, “the thing that would be most helpful is for us to have better information on which wells are most hazardous. Because with, let’s just say, a million orphaned wells, and 2.1 million unplugged abandoned wells, we must prioritize, and we can’t prioritize unless we know which wells pose the most risk to the environment and to public health.”

There is still a long road ahead for the solution to the orphan well problem, and with fresh bankruptcies during the past year due to the pandemic, the number of wells left to deal with continues to be a moving target. The energy transition could be both a sign for celebration and alarm. As assets exchange hands from bigger operators raising capital for greener projects to smaller, lower-cost producers, the new owners will look for every advantage to preserve the bottom line. That might include deferring abandonment work, because, frankly, there’s no money in that.

“At the very least, we’re in the tens of billions of dollars range,” said Raimi on the national tab for orphan well cleanup. “I don’t know what the ultimate number is going to be, and therefore we need more information. It’s possible that there are some orphaned wells out there that are not causing anybody any harm. They might be in the middle of prairie land, not leaking any methane, and not causing risk around water. Should we really spend $100,000 to plug a well like that? Probably not. But again, we don’t know which wells pose substantial risks and which don’t.”


Average plugging and restoration costs per well. Source: Columbia University CGEP report.


For Further Reading


Green Stimulus for Oil and Gas Workers: Considering a Major Federal Effort To Plug Orphaned and Abandoned Wells. 2020. Daniel Raimi, Neelesh Nerurkar, and Jason Bordoff, Columbia University CGEP.

Decommissioning Orphaned and Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells: New Estimates and Cost Drivers. 2021. Daniel Raimi, Alan J. Krupnick, Jhih-Shyang Shih, and Alexandra Thompson, ChemRXIV, Cambridge University Press.


Millions of Leaky and Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Are Threatening Lives and the Climate

Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would cap them—while putting tens of thousands of people to work
.

July 26, 2021 Jeff Turrentine

An abandoned oil drilling project in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, where companies have abandoned thousands of wells in and around the area, walking away from cleanup responsibilities that could cost the state tens of millions of dollars.

Andrew Rush/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

When a bipartisan group of senators was hammering out the details of a proposed national infrastructure package earlier this summer, compromise was inevitable.

But one aspect of the package required little to no compromise: the call to cap the millions of orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells that currently pockmark the country, from Alaska to New York to New Mexico. Whether it’s through the bipartisan infrastructure deal that’s currently being negotiated or through additional, upcoming recovery legislation, tackling this problem is essential—not only because these wells are dangerous polluters but also because doing so would create thousands of jobs in the process.

Taken together, these wells are a major source of air and groundwater pollution, as they continue to leak toxic substances such as arsenic and methane even after they’re no longer operational. But they also represent an all-too-rare point of political consensus: Just about everyone, from the reddest of red-state Republicans to the bluest of blue-state Democrats, agrees that the wells pose a serious threat to public health, that they need to be properly sealed, and that doing so will create jobs while making us all safer, whether from pollution or climate change or both.

Here’s what you need to know about these dangerous relics of fossil fuel extraction.

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What are orphaned and abandoned wells?

Over the past hundred years, fossil fuel companies and some private landowners in the United States have drilled tens of millions of holes deep into the earth to extract oil and natural gas. When a well goes dry (as, ultimately, they all do), its operator moves on. “Orphaned” wells are those for which no former owner or operator can be located, while the term “abandoned well” typically refers to an unproductive well with a known owner/operator. In either case, the wells remain uncapped. They are essentially open holes in the ground that need to be cleaned and plugged with cement to stop their pollutants from escaping into the environment.

How many of them are there, and where are they located?


A recent investigation by Reuters estimates that the United States could have more than 3.2 million orphaned and abandoned wells. Some states have a few hundred; others have a few thousand. And some have a staggering number of them: Pennsylvania reportedly has more than 330,000 of these wells within its borders.

“Orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells are located everywhere,” says NRDC senior advocate Joshua Axelrod. “They can be in the middle of a forest, in backyards, in farm fields, even under sidewalks and houses.” Basically, they are anywhere that oil and gas development has taken place—at sites of large-scale operation spread out over many acres as well as single-well outfits on tiny parcels of land.




Why are they so dangerous?

Simple: Because they leak. Among the chemicals that can seep out and contaminate air, soil, or groundwater are hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and arsenic. Even the smallest leaks can adversely affect the local environment if they go unaddressed or undetected for many years.

Most alarmingly, though, these wells emit a lot of methane, an odorless gas that can seep into nearby buildings (a home, school, or office, for example) and pose major health hazards. When concentrated in enclosed spaces—such as a basement or a bedroom, for instance—methane will take the place of oxygen in the lungs and can cause weakness, nausea, vomiting, and convulsions. Long-term methane poisoning can even be fatal. And methane, of course, doesn’t just make people sick: It’s also highly explosive. In 2017, two men were killed while installing a hot water heater in the basement of a home in Firestone, Colorado, that had been built adjacent to an oil and gas field. When the neighboring petroleum corporation restarted a well that had been dormant for a year, a damaged flowline filled the basement with gas, which ignited into a fireball that destroyed the house in an instant.


Hanson Rowe, a landowner who blames a leaky gas well on his Salyersville, Kentucky, property for health problems
Bryan Woolston/Reuters


What’s the connection to climate change?

Though carbon dioxide emissions are easily the largest contributor to climate change in terms of volume, methane—the second-largest contributor—is actually 86 times more potent at trapping greenhouse gases over the first 20 years of its release into the atmosphere. In other words, small amounts of atmospheric methane can have the same heat-trapping power as much, much larger amounts of CO2.

According to the Reuters investigation, which conducted a comprehensive review of the available data in 2020, orphaned and abandoned wells in the United States were collectively responsible for emitting 281,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere in 2018. The report states that the collective methane release is “the climate-damage equivalent of consuming about 16 million barrels of crude oil,” which is nearly as much oil as the United States uses in a typical day. “Plugging orphaned and abandoned wells,” says Axelrod, “would lead to a measurable decrease in methane emissions and help us meet our climate goals.”

Why haven’t the fossil fuel companies that are responsible addressed this problem on their own?


It can cost anywhere between $10,000 and $50,000 to effectively seal off an older well, and as much as $300,000 to seal off a newer, deeper one. And while oil and gas companies are legally obligated to plug their wells, the economics of the industry—combined with lax regulation by states—means that few of these operators have the cash on hand or the incentive to adequately do their duty. It’s also not uncommon for oil companies to go bankrupt, leaving them with no means of cleaning up the physical ruin that they’ve created along the way to their own financial ruin.

In either case, the responsibility of remediation almost always ends up falling to the states, many of which are cash-strapped themselves. In May, the House Natural Resources Committee introduced a bill that would incentivize states to strengthen their own regulations by tying funding to these efforts. Still, at best, this would only solve the problem going forward, not address the cleanup of the backlog of three million wells.


Nathan Graber of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation hiking through the fog to find abandoned oil wells in Olean, New York
Lindsay DeDario/Reuters

How many U.S. jobs could a nationwide well remediation plan create?


“A lot,” says Axelrod. “The number depends on the size of the plan and the investment made. But a fairly middle-of-the-road estimate for the number of jobs that could be created if all orphaned and abandoned wells were to be located and plugged is on the order of 100,000 jobs per year for the next seven years.”

The infrastructure package proposed as part of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda calls for $16 billion in funding to securely cap these wells (and also to close up abandoned mines, the coal industry’s version of this problem). Biden has made a point to stress that this nationwide program would create more union jobs with good wages. Many of the jobs would go to former oil and gas industry employees who have been laid off as a result of the pandemic and who would be arriving at their new work effectively pre-trained, with a basic understanding of the mechanics and technologies involved in the capping process. The president has also said that these workers would get paid “the same price that they would charge to dig those wells.”

Now that’s progress.



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Cost Comparison Between Carbon-Neutral Fuel and Alternative Low-Carbon Energy Options

This paper examines potential new options for the petroleum sector to contribute to emission reductions and the climate debate.

August 17, 2021
HSE Now



The global climate-change discussion continues to search for ways to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from their three main sources: the thermal generation of electric power, transportation by internal-combustion vehicles, and industries (petrochemical and others) that use coal-fired boilers or hydrocarbons as feedstock. This paper examines potential new options for the petroleum sector to contribute to emission reductions and the climate debate. One area could be the bringing to market of a carbon-free transportation fuel at affordable prices. A second could be the reduction of the carbon footprint of the power sector.

As other innovations have led to the use of natural gas instead of coal in power generation, and as consumers may increasingly switch to electrified motor vehicles, climate policy will increasingly require that electricity be decarbonized. This opens up a significant potential for the petroleum sector to use its existing skills to deploy carbon capture and storage techniques to the combustion of natural gas, thus delivering carbon-free fuel to the electric power sector.

A further use for natural gas is hydrogen generation, again with carbon capture and storage. This, in turn, could lead to the adoption of hydrogen fuel cells for future power generation and for transportation. This paper examines a wide range of studies from prominent institutions and researchers to show in quantified terms what may be the costs and feasibility of such a set of strategies.

The paper begins by presenting the nature of most greenhouse-gas emissions from the petroleum industry and contrasting their magnitudes and origins. The petroleum engineering skill set easily spans the technical challenges of geologic storage, and pore space requirements are estimated to compensate for combustion CO2 depending on whether the emissions come from coal, oil, or natural gas. The paper then briefly reviews the current technical information and technology readiness of carbon capture and storage.

Because transportation represents the largest fractions of the crude oil emissions, the paper considers the cost of capturing and storing an amount of CO2 equivalent to what will be emitted through exhaust pipes. Also noted is that hydrogen generated from natural gas represents an alternative carbon-neutral fuel.

Electrifying transportation offers a promising alternative to carbon-neutral fuels, provided the available electricity is decarbonized. The needs of ocean and air transportation cannot be fully addressed without onboard fuel, and, interestingly, biogenic products might provide this supply and substitute current hydrocarbon products.

A final discussion compares energy efficiency and life cycle analysis for internal-combustion vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel-cell electric vehicles. Conclusions offer many potential leadership opportunities for the petroleum industry.

Download the complete paper from SPE’s Health, Safety, Environment, and Sustainability Technical Discipline page for free until 25 August.

Find paper SPE 201613 on OnePetro here.

 

Study suggests hydraulic fracturing can impact surface water quality

groundwater
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Tens of thousands of hydraulic fracturing wells drilled over the past few years from Pennsylvania to Texas to North Dakota have made unconventional oil and gas production part of everyday life for many Americans. This raises questions about the impacts to local communities and human health. While some studies document that hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater, new evidence shows the practice can also reduce surface water quality

The study, released today in the journal Science, finds  is associated with small increases in  in surface waters for several shales and many watersheds across the United States. The largest impacts occurred during the early phases of production when wells generate large amounts of flowback and produced . However, even the highest levels were well below what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers harmful.

"Our work provides the first large-sample evidence showing that hydraulic fracturing is related to the quality of nearby  for several U.S. shales," says Christian Leuz, a co-author of the study and the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics, Finance and Accounting at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. "Though we estimated very small water impact, one has to consider that most measurements were taken in rivers or streams and that the average fracturing well in our dataset was not particularly close to the monitors in the watershed."

Leuz and his co-authors, Pietro Bonetti from the University of Navarra and Giovanna Michelon from the University of Bristol, combined surface water measurements with more than 46,000 hydraulic fracturing wells to examine whether new drilling and development activities are associated with elevated salt concentrations (bromide, chloride, barium and strontium) in 408 watersheds over an eleven-year period. They found a very small but consistent increase in barium, chloride and strontium, but not bromide, in watersheds with new hydraulic fracturing wells.

Several findings support the connection between the elevated salt levels and the nearby hydraulic fracturing activities. Along with the timing of when the highest levels occurred, the salt concentrations were also more pronounced for wells in areas where the deep formations exhibited higher levels of salinity. Additionally, they were highest when observed within a year at monitoring stations that were within 15 kilometers and (likely) downstream from a well.

"Better and more frequent water measurement is needed to fully understand the surface water impact of unconventional oil and gas development," says Bonetti, who notes that a lack of water quality data limited their analysis.

Hydraulic fracturing fluids contain  that are potentially more dangerous than salts. But they're not widely included in public databases, making a large-sample statistical analysis of these possibly hazardous substances infeasible. Also, many monitoring stations in a watershed are not located close to wells or may be upstream from the well, likely depressing the magnitude of the estimates.

"Policymakers could consider more targeted water measurement," Michelon says. "For instance, policymakers could place monitoring stations in locations where they can better track surface water impacts, increase the frequency of measurement around the time new wells are drilled, and more systematically track the other chemical substances found in fracking fluids."

Water used for hydraulic fracturing varies widely across United States
More information: Large-sample evidence on the impact of unconventional oil and gas development on surface waters, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz2185
Journal information: Science 
Provided by University of Chicago 

Fracking linked to surface water quality for first time in new study
BY SHARON UDASIN - 08/19/21 0

© Getty Images

The effects of fracking on nearby water sources may be worse than previously thought, according to a new study that found hydraulic fracturing can alter the composition of surface water and not just groundwater.

The study, published Thursday in Science, is the first to link fracking to small increases in salt concentrations in surface water, particularly during the early stages of production. While the highest salt levels were well below what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers harmful, researchers identified a robust association between new wells and water quality changes, triggering public health concerns.

“Our work provides the first large-scale sample evidence showing that hydraulic fracturing is related to the quality of nearby surface waters for several U.S. shales,” Christian Leuz, co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, said in a news release.


The authors analyzed almost 61,000 surface water measurements that had been taken from 2006 to 2016 near about 46,000 hydraulic fracturing wells across 408 watersheds. They investigated the presence of bromide, chloride, strontium and barium, the ions most common in high concentrations in frack “flowback” — the fluid that returns to the surface following fracking operations. Their findings indicated a small but consistent increase in barium, chloride and strontium, but not in bromide.

While Leuz acknowledged that the concentrations might not be alarming at face value, he warned that measurements taken in rivers are susceptible to considerable dilution. In addition, monitors are sometimes situated a couple miles downstream from a fracking site and across entire watersheds — which can be almost as big as a county, he added.

By averaging data from all the wells throughout such expansive spaces, some of which showed impacts and others of which did not, the researchers ended up with these smaller, but still statistically significant, salt concentrations, according to Leuz.

Higher concentrations of barium in drinking water can lead to increases in blood pressure, while chloride can increase water conductivity — the ability of water to conduct electricity — and lead to unpleasant tasting water, as well as potential threats to aquatic life, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Elevated strontium levels can have adverse impacts on bone development.


“They’re not innocuous either,” Leuz told The Hill.

The study identified the highest salt concentrations during the early phases of oil and gas production, when wells generate the most flowback. The researchers also saw higher levels at monitoring stations that were located within 10 miles and downstream from a well, and in measurements taken within a year of the fracking activity.

Co-author Pietro Bonetti, from the University of Navarra in Spain, emphasized the need for more frequent water samples to fully understand the surface water impact, in the news release that accompanied the study. A third co-author, Giovanna Michelon from the University of Bristol in England, called on policymakers to “consider more targeted water measurements” in strategically placed locations.

The three co-authors, who are all economists, became interested in the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on water quality while investigating the ramifications of mandatory chemical disclosure rules that several states — like Wyoming, Pennsylvania and New York — had instituted for hydraulic fracturing operators in 2010. But they first needed to establish a relationship between fracking and surface water quality, which was not yet available, so they implemented their own statistical analysis.

The researchers will conclude a followup study on the effects of disclosure rules in about another month, but Leuz said “the current results suggest that practices became cleaner and had less impact.”

The authors expressed optimism that their statistical approach could be applicable to other fracking chemicals that are even more dangerous than elevated salt levels — but that are rarely included in public databases. For example, recently unearthed documents indicated that the EPA approved the use of fluids that contain toxic forever chemicals.

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If the EPA were to conduct regular measurements on such toxic chemicals and make that data available, Leuz said that he and his colleagues could easily run the same statistical analysis on those compounds.

“We could do this for any substance,” he said. “You give me any relevant chemical, and we could apply this approach.”

Updated: 2:54 p.m.
SNC-Lavalin completes closing of Resources Oil & Gas business 


NEWS PROVIDED BY
SNC-Lavalin
Aug 16, 2021

MONTREAL, Aug. 16, 2021 /CNW Telbec/ - SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC), a fully integrated professional services and project management company with offices around the world, today announces that it has completed the closing of the sale of its Resources Oil & Gas business on August 15, following receipt of Saudi Arabian regulatory approval.

SNC-Lavalin previously announced that it had closed the sale of a substantial portion of its Resources Oil & Gas business on July 29, pursuant to its binding agreement with Kentech Corporate Holdings Limited ("Kentech") announced on February 9, 2021. The Company indicated it expected full closing to be completed by the end of Q3 2021.

"The closing of the sale of all activities related to our Resources Oil & Gas business allows us to focus our ongoing efforts on executing our strategic direction announced more than two years ago," said Ian L. Edwards, President and CEO, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. "Our business is now realigned on growing our high potential core Engineering Services, which includes the Engineering, Design & Project Management, Nuclear and Infrastructure Services segments."

"We look forward to working closely with our employees, suppliers and clients to develop innovative solutions to engineer a better future for our planet and its people. I would like to thank all the Resources Oil & Gas employees for their dedication and hard work over the years, and wish them much success with Kentech,'' added Mr. Edwards.

As previously announced, the transaction is expected to generate a non-cash gain on the sale in excess of the fair value write down, after accounting for the elimination of foreign exchange cumulative translation adjustments included in the historical carrying amounts of the disposed Oil & Gas business.

SNC-Lavalin Closes Sale of Substantial Portion of Resources Oil & Gas Business 

Français
NEWS PROVIDED BY
SNC-Lavalin
Jul 30, 2021, 


MONTREAL, July 30, 2021 /CNW Telbec/ - SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC), a fully integrated professional services and project management company with offices around the world, today announces that it has closed the sale of a substantial portion of its Resources Oil & Gas business on July 29, pursuant to the previously announced binding agreement with Kentech Corporate Holdings Limited ("Kentech") dated February 9, 2021.

The balance of closing, which constitutes the Saudi Arabian portion of the business, is expected to be completed by the end of Q3 2021 following the anticipated receipt of standard Saudi Arabian regulatory approval. This part of the business represents approximately a quarter of the Resources Oil & Gas business' total annual revenues.

"The substantial close of the sale of the Resources Oil & Gas business marks another important step in our journey that began two years ago, when we first announced our strategic initiative to simplify and de-risk our business," said Ian Edwards, President and CEO, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. "We have now realigned our business to focus on growing our high potential core Engineering Services, which includes the Engineering, Design & Project Management, Nuclear and Infrastructure Services segments."

"We look forward to working closely with our employees, suppliers and clients to develop innovative solutions to engineer a better future for our planet and its people. I would like to thank all the Resources Oil & Gas employees for their dedication and hard work over the years, and wish those already now part of Kentech much success going forward," added Mr. Edwards.

The transaction is expected to generate a non-cash gain on the sale in excess of the fair value write down, after accounting for the elimination of foreign exchange cumulative translation adjustments included in the historical carrying amounts of the disposed Oil & Gas business.

About SNC-Lavalin
Founded in 1911, SNC-Lavalin is a fully integrated professional services and project management company with offices around the world. SNC-Lavalin connects people, technology and data to help shape and deliver world-leading concepts and projects, while offering comprehensive innovative solutions across the asset lifecycle. Our expertise is wide-ranging — consulting & advisory, intelligent networks & cybersecurity, design & engineering, procurement, project & construction management, operations & maintenance, decommissioning and sustaining capital – and delivered to clients in four strategic sectors: EDPM (engineering, design and project management), Infrastructure, Nuclear and Resources, supported by Capital. People. Drive. Results. News and information are available at www.snclavalin.com or follow us on Twitter @SNCLavalin.

SOURCE SNC-Lavalin

For further information: Media: Harold Fortin, Senior Director, External Communications, 514-393-8000, poste 56127, media@snclavalin.com; Investors: Denis Jasmin, Vice President, Investor Relations, 514-393-8000 poste 57553, denis.jasmin@snclavalin.com
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SNC-Lavalin

Founded in 1911, SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC) is one of the leading engineering and construction groups in the world and a major player in the ownership of infrastructure. From offices in over 40 countries, SNC-Lavalin’s 30,000 employees provide EPC and EPCM services to clients...


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