Subscribe to Blog ContentEverything is bigger in Texas. One site in Texas' Barnett Shale is living up to that. Arlington, the home of the Dallas Cowboys' stadium, also houses the site that's "producing more than 14,000 or so wells in Barnett Shale. The determination comes from looking at the average daily production in one month's time," says Gene Powell, publisher of Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter. Chesapeake Energy manages this site known as "Day Kimball Hill #A1."
Houston Chronicle's Tom Fowler explains the size of the discovery: "Put another way, if the average U.S. home uses about 73,000 cubic feet of natural gas a year to heat and cook (so says American Gas Association data) in October alone the Arlington well produced enough gas for about 5,500 homes for a year." The well could be in business for 50 years or more according to Dave Leopold, Chesapeake's operations manager for Barnett Shale. This surpasses T. Boone Pickens' prediction given in a speech at the University of Texas at Dallas where he believes natural gas will dry up in 30 years.
If the well produces 10 billion cubic feet of gas at an average price of $6 per 1000 cubic feet, it could bring in an estimated two million dollars. Exxon and Total, two big oil companies with recent deals Barnett Shale-based companies, won't regret its decision anytime soon.
Everything isn't rosy in Texas. Dish, a small town in Texas' Denton county, have voiced concerns about pollution from the drilling that could have cancer-causing agents. In late 2008, test results have shown elevated levels of cancer-causing chemical benzene.
The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) took air examples and report that some sites show high levels of benzene. However, TCEQ needs more samples before releasing results. "We don't know what the TCEQ will reveal in their next report, but here are some facts we do know. The most likely source of benzene at natural gas well sights is condensate storage tanks, but of the counties in the EPA's nine-county non-attainment area, only two, Denton and Parker, have any significant production of condensate," says a representative from Barnett Shale Energy Education Council.
A third-party engineering firm is conducting tests at the request of Barnett Shale Energy Education Council and Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake also says it checks the wells everyday and uses infrared cameras to look for leaks. The company says that its wells produce "almost no condensate—the lightweight form of crude oil that is thought to be a source of some benzene emissions."
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