Much Of North Dakota's Natural Gas Is Going Up In Flames

Chris Jones · Jan 30, 2014

Good story
NPR story

2x4 · Jan 30, 2014

this was common in West Virginia in the 60's & 70's.

Eldon (WA) · Jan 30, 2014

(quoted from post at 19:45:30 01/30/14) Good story
NPR story

Then y'all would be bitching about how much colder it is with those "heaters" turned off

Hanky · Jan 30, 2014

Another non-story, this has been going on for years, they don"t want pipelines, but want the oil, the natural gas has to be burned off, nothing else to do with it.
Back in the 70"s a huge compressing station was built in Saudia Arabia to bring in LNG to the states, but Carter"s folks put a stop to that, they burned millions of cubic feet of natural gas, they didn"t want any of it here, it never was an energy "crisis" is was a government control crisis, last I herd the equipment was still just sitting there never used.

504 · Jan 30, 2014

Just let it vent, then when it explodes they will have a big story to write.

NCWayne · Jan 30, 2014

I used to see the gas flares on the refineries when I was stationed down in Texas. Always seemed like a HUGE waste of energy to me. I mean seriously, why can't the gas be 'vented' into a burner chamber in a boiler that creates steam? In turn that steam would turn a turbine to create electricity? I guess like many other things in this world that make sense to the 'common man', the folks in charge are 'too smart' to even think about such common sense measures.

john in la · Jan 30, 2014

Older model flares were run all the time to keep them lit. Newer model flares have a pilot lite system.

The only reason a refinery has a flare stack is to prevent a explosion. Something goes wrong and they need to vent quickly they do it threw the flare.

So if you drive by a newer refinery that has the pilot lite system and the flare is going thank the operator. He just saved your town from having a major problem.

JerryS · Jan 30, 2014

Happens in Louisiana, too. This is a well about 1,200 feet behind my house in northwest Louisiana. It sits about 300 feet from a gas well drilled into the Haynesville Shale, but on this one they were apparently looking for liquids, so the natural gas they encountered was apparently just in their way. This flame, which is about 50 feet high, burned non-stop for three weeks. A small city could have been heated on the gas that was flared off.

Bob · Jan 30, 2014

There"s a couple of more links in a reply I posted to a thread back on New Year"s Day...
Old thread

Phil in Pa · Jan 31, 2014

It's too bad NPR's beloved federal government has over-regulated the industry, or that gas would be put to use somewhere pretty quickly.

MarkB_MI · Jan 31, 2014

Over-regulation has forced oil companies to burn off millions of cubic feet of natural gas? Please tell me more. Are you saying that gas is dirt cheap because of too much regulation? Are you saying that oil drilling in North Dakota is moving at such a rapid pace because of over-regulation?

Sometimes it's not the government's fault when corporations waste valuable resources. Sometimes it's a simple matter of maximizing short-term profits. CEOs are rarely evaluated based on how wisely they manage resources that their corporations don't actually pay for. In the unlikely event royalty owners succeed in their lawsuit and force exploration companies to pay for the gas they've wasted, you can bet those same companies will find a way to not burn off so much gas.

Anonymous-0 · Jan 31, 2014

100 % right They burn them for safey and to increase production of the well.

Mike M · Jan 31, 2014

Wasting natural gas is nothing new. They have been doing it for years !
I have also heard of hunters coming across gas pipelines just leaking away.

Where my parents live there are gas lines running around and I think underground storage is in the area, but do you think they would actually run a gas line so you could buy it from them. Heck no !

casenut1 · Jan 31, 2014

Was common here in central Ohio in the late 60's and 70's. Couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

Dan in North Houston · Jan 31, 2014

The venting looks like a dramatic waste of resources, but as usual, there is more to the story. It takes a lot of gas to pay for the pipelines and compressors to deliver it to market. Back in the old days, we vented a lot of gas simply because there was no economic market for it. Today, there is much less flaring, but it is still a matter of economics. When a well is first completed, there is a level of uncertainty as to just how much it will produce - both oil and gas. We often test wells for some extended period before we can make a decision on whether we can install facilities to capture all of the gas. The state regulators recognize this, and they have limits on how much we can test or flare.
Here's an analogy for this group. Saying that any gas flaring is a waste and should be stopped is like saying that combines should be 100% efficient and that no kernels of corn should end up on the ground after harvest.

dcarp · Jan 31, 2014

Great assessment Dan. Well was put in a mile NW of my place here, they flared the gas for about 6 months until they completed a pipeline to transport the gas. Oil & Gas is a way of life here in Texas and most people understand the process.

sam in mo · Jan 31, 2014

Thats like saying I dont have a truck to haul my corn to storage so I will just run it all out on the ground in the field.

Anonymous-0 · Jan 31, 2014

I can relate to that only on a much smaller scale. We had a water well with methane gas in it, but the cost to capture it and use it was not feasible. The first thing in the morning we could turn on the faucet and light it. It didn't last, but made a nice little ball of fire. Had several small explosions in the well pit, so we quit using for safety reasons. Was really a neat thing to see the expressions on peoples faces when we would light the faucet.

minnymovista · Jan 31, 2014

MIKE don"t be bad mouthing the pipeline company that they wont sell the gas to your parents because they prolly would if your government would let them! There are a bunch of different rules the producers or pipeline companies have to follow and if you sell gas to individual consumers you fall under a whole different set of rules for distribution that your government enforces therefore they are not allowed to sell to individual consumers!

minnymovista · Jan 31, 2014

Tractor300
At least you admit to having methane in your water well! Most of anti frackers are saying that fracking caused this but the real story is that there has been methane in water wells for years and then when a well is drilled anywhere near a water well the antis are saying that fracking caused it!

LAA · Jan 31, 2014

Over regulation is the cause of the current gas glut/waste, but maybe more or less indirectly. The price of natural gas was heavily regulated up until the late 70"s, this propelled the electric power industry to coal which was cheap at the time and Tricky Dicks worst mistake, the EPA, had not bared their fangs yet. A lot of power plants were built to burn coal in gas country that may have been built to burn gas had the free market prevailed at the time. The legacy of that is the vast majority of natural gas is still consumed in the residential market, a growing share in manufacturing/industry and still very little in power generation. Another way that regulation has adversely affected the natural gas market and consumers, is pipeline construction regulation, outside of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma it is very difficult and time consuming and expensive to get pipelines built due to permits, lawsuits and inane regulations.The federal government can take no credit for the oil booms in North dakota or Texas, that is all state pols that have smoothed the way in those places, the feds, as always have done all they can do to hinder the industry and it is wildly successful in spite of the federal government, certainly not because of the federal government.

Indiana Ken · Jan 31, 2014

(quoted from post at 06:27:25 01/31/14) .......Here's an analogy for this group. Saying that any gas flaring is a waste and should be stopped is like saying that combines should be 100% efficient and that no kernels of corn should end up on the ground after harvest.

More like: My combine is spilling 30% of the kernels on the ground but the harvest is so great I have no plans to repair it.

Nancy Howell · Jan 31, 2014

Don't know abut fracking, but I can tell you there is a small town north of Dallas, Azle I think, that now has frequent earthquakes since they started fracking in the area.

IH2444 · Jan 31, 2014

(quoted from post at 02:10:58 01/31/14) It's too bad NPR's beloved federal government has over-regulated the industry, or that gas would be put to use somewhere pretty quickly.

How would they put it to use?

LAA · Jan 31, 2014

Those quakes were probably caused by illegal aliens, AKA external_link voters, running from ICE.

Much Of North Dakota's Natural Gas Is Going Up In Flames

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