Council briefed on fracking
Posted on Thursday, 29 September 2011 09:27 a.m.
Oil industry representatives paid Environment Southland a visit today to try and debunk what they say are misconceptions about the process known as fracking.
Petroleum Exploration and Production Association Chairman John Bay and Chris McKeown, of L&M Petroleum addressed Councillors to defend the procedure that has been the subject of recent criticism because of its environmental impact.
Fracking is a procedure whereby a solution is pumped into the earth, fracturing rock to create a pathway through shale to tap into oil and gas resources.
Mr Bay urged the Council to “link up” with the Taranaki Regional Council, where fracking has occurred, to tap into their knowledge-base of the process and ignore “the misinformation being bandied about”. Fracking has been a target of bad press, largely driven by the filmGaslandwhich illustrated environmental issues associated with the process in Pennsylvania, the United States, he said.
Mr Bay acknowledged there were problems in Pennsylvania but said there were significant differences in how fracking was managed in New Zealand and other countries. The film and some media coverage of fracking were ill-informed and misleading, he said. New Zealand regulations including the Resource Management Act would not allow a comparable situation to Pennsylvania, where rules were lacking and there were other issues in Pennsylvania leading from practices that would not be allowed in New Zealand, Mr Bay said.
Several countries across the world did establish moratoriums on fracking but most had since been lifted once appropriate environmental regulations were put in place.
The chances for groundwater contamination from fracking in New Zealand were reduced because aquifers were shallow and the process happened about 1km deeper than the nearest aquifer.
Suggesting fracking was a cause of earthquakes was also “ludicrous”, he said. “The forces in an earthquake are many magnitudes greater than any pump on the surface can generate. But still we have these claims in the media.”
Resource consent is required to frack in Taranaki because of the nature of the activity, injecting the fracking solution into the ground. Cr Jan Riddell asked whether the solution pumped could be recovered, lessening the chance of contamination. Mr Bay said most of it would be captured through oil extraction and appropriately disposed of.
Cr Robert Guyton asked why resource consent for fracking had only been sought retrospectively occurred in Taranaki, commenting that: “It seems irresponsible to me.”
Mr Bay said there was a misunderstanding because the council granted consent for the drilling operation and it was wrongly assumed that included permission for fracking. There had also been mistakes made as to who could authorise the process with the Taranaki Regional Council and Crown Minerals each suggesting it was the other’s responsibility. Once that was resolved, consent was sought and granted, he said.
Cr Guyton also asked how likely it was that there would be fracking in Southland. Mr McKeown said L&M had not considered during exploratory work in the region but some shale had been found and was being examined. “To be honest we’ve done almost zero work on it. It’s really very early on and there isn’t much work being done on it in New Zealand,” he said.
Environment Southland is the brand name of Southland Regional Council.