Blown-out Bradford County well 'stable but not killed'
Share with others:
A Marcellus Shale natural gas well that blew out Tuesday night is "stable but not killed," and the driller has said it will voluntarily suspend some operations statewide while it works to plug the well and determine what happened.
The Chesapeake Energy well in Bradford County had an equipment failure that allowed thousands of gallons of chemically laced hydraulic fracturing fluid to flow from the site for at least half a day. Seven families who live near the well site were evacuated as a precaution.
This morning, "a small amount of flow back is discharging but being collected by vacuum trucks," said Daniel Spadoni, a state Department of Environment Protection spokesman in Williamsport. "It is not escaping the well pad."
A statement from Chesapeake said that "well-control efforts have been successful in significantly reducing flow from the leak."
Chesapeake, in its statement, said it is voluntarily suspending "completion operations" in Pennsylvania as it evaluates the incident. All processes after drilling are considered part of "well completion," starting with fracking and including all the setup before connecting the well to the pipeline. Chesapeake's suspension of work will affect seven crews, six in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia, that go from site to site to complete the wells.
In Bradford, operational equipment has been replaced by equipment aimed at plugging the well, Chesapeake said.
Mr. Spadoni said that Boots & Coots International Well Control, a Houston-based company, is setting up a system to pump material into the hole to kill the well. "That process should begin early afternoon," Mr. Spadoni said in an email message. Materials used include "things like ground-up tires, plastic bits, and other rubber material."
First Published April 21, 2011 10:02 am
