Cause of well site fire not known
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Scott Rotruck, left, vice president of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy Corp., talks about the fire at a well site in Washington County during a news conference Thursday in Canonsburg. Three workers were injured in the fire, which broke out Wednesday evening at the well site in Avella. At right is Matt Sheppard, senior director of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy.
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A day after a flash fire sent flames skyrocketing into the evening sky over a Marcellus Shale drill site in Washington County, investigators still are unsure what caused it to erupt.
Three workers, all working at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. drill site off Meadowcroft Road, just west of the village of Avella, suffered injuries not believed to be life-threatening.
The three were doing maintenance work Wednesday at the site away from the wells but in the vicinity of a number of condensate tanks that hold "low-gravity oils," including butane, propane and other fuels retrieved from the three wells before actual natural gas production begins. Chesapeake was preparing the wells for production by lighting on fire the initial natural gas coming from the wells in a process known as flaring.
Katy Gresh, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Southwest Regional Office, said seven state investigators were on site all day Thursday but had not issued any violations against Chesapeake.
"We'll look at this incident and determine what can be learned from it and take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again," she said.
A DEP water quality specialist did find that all of the runoff from the well site -- which potentially could include chemicals used on the site -- had been contained by Chesapeake's environmental control systems.
Ms. Gresh said one possible cause of the fire was an "atmospheric condition," such as high winds that helped the flames to ignite vapors that emanate from the condensate storage tanks.
Each tank holds 500 barrels, or 21,000 gallons, of the low-gravity oils -- sometimes referred to as "wet gases" -- that are stored before being shipped to market.
The three men who were injured apparently were standing near those tanks when the fire began.
First Published February 25, 2011 12:00 am
