Pennsylvania Natural Gas Well Blowout

Houston-based EOG Resources Inc. (EOG) was ordered to temporarily halt natural-Natural Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania, following a well blowout in the northwestern part of the state on June 3, 2010. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said the firm was banned from all drilling activities for seven days, and wouldn't be allowed to engage in any hydraulic fracturing for up to 14 days.

The DEP also banned EOG, which operates 265 active wells in the state, from completing or starting post-fracturing operations at any wells for 30 days.

The Pennsylvania well blowout in rural Clearfield County, Pennsylvania occurred around 8:00 p.m. when a service rig operated by a contractor was in the final stages of completing the well and bringing it into production. While no one was injured in the incident, the blowout released 35,000 gallons of drilling fluids before being contained the following afternoon.

While DEP said that none of the fluid that escaped flowed into streams, they were monitoring the spill to determine whether any chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing seeped through the soil into underground water supplies.

The well was located in the Marcellus Shale, a formation rich in natural gas that lies beneath Pennsylvania, New York and several other states that has seen the rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing in recent years. The EOG well was one of four located on the same drilling pad at a hunting club in Lawrence Township, Clearfield County. The site is near Moshannon State Forest.

EOG said it appeared that the integrity of a seal in part of the rig's blow-out preventer assembly was compromised, allowing pressurized gas and fluids to flow. A contractor dug trenches to contain the spilled fluid, mostly salt water that was trapped deep underground, but including trace elements of drilling chemicals.

In the days after the Pennsylvania well blowout, questions were raised about EOG's response to the accident. The company called 911 and notified the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency immediately. But rather than calling the state's 24-hour emergency response line, EOG left a voice mail at 10 p.m. with a DEP employee. As a result, DEP staff did not arrive on the site until 4 a.m.

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