Drillers Head To Brooke County
Push for Marcellus Shale natural gas moving north
Wheeling WV Intelligencer
14 December 2010
By Casey Junkins
WELLSBURG - West Virginia's natural gas drilling boom continues
marching northward, as Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy plans to
drill on at least four separate sites in
Brooke County.
With the Ohio County drilling sites near The Highlands and on Dement
Road well under construction - and widespread drilling and gas
production ongoing in Tyler, Wetzel and
Marshall counties - it seems Brooke County residents can expect to soon
see drilling rigs popping up across the
landscape.
According to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's
Office of Oil and Gas, Chesapeake is
seeking permission to drill on the following sites throughout Brooke
County:
§ Property in the name of James Seabright,
northeast of Bethany;
§ Property in the name of Mark Owen,
northeast of Bethany;
§ Property in the name of John Hupp,
northeast of West Liberty;
§ Property in the name of Barry
Greathouse, northeast of West Liberty.
Efforts to contact Seabright, Owen, Hupp and Greathouse were
unsuccessful. Brooke County Commissioners Bernie Kazienko, Marty Bartz
and Norma Tarr did not respond to requests
for comment.
Stacey Brodak, director of corporate development for Chesapeake,
provided this statement: "Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, has applied for
permits for four pad sites in Brooke
County: Seabright, Greathouse, Owen and Hupp. Those permits have not
yet been received. We continue to
formulate our development plans for all acreage throughout West
Virginia, but generally do not comment publicly
regarding our leasing efforts."
Chesapeake Appalachia is the eastern subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy.
Property owners in Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel and Tyler counties have
signed drilling deals to yield them lease revenues anywhere from $5 per
acre to at least as much as $4,000 per
acre. The range for production royalties to be granted to landowners
goes from 12.5 percent to at least 18.75
percent.
A report titled "The Economic Impacts of the Marcellus Shale:
Implications for New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia" shows the
drilling may be able to create 22,928 jobs in the Mountain State next
year.
Recent well fires and traffic accidents involving gas company vehicles
on narrow rural roads have some residents worried about future drilling
in the area. Employees working to open the Chesapeake "Glenn Didriksen"
well on Ohio County's Dement Road have temporarily blocked the roadway
to move equipment in and out of the site.
Channce Gamble, assistant director of the Brooke County Emergency
Management Agency, said he knows county leaders are slated to meet with
Chesapeake officials sometime in the next month regarding safety
issues, but he could not pinpoint an exact date.
As for the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process drillers use to
stimulate Marcellus wells to release more gas, the procedure calls for
pumping millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals down into the
shafts.
According to Chesapeake, 99.5 percent of its fracking fluid consists of
water and sand. Some of the chemicals used include hydrochloric acid,
commonly found in swimming pool cleaner; ethylene glycol, commonly
found in antifreeze; isopropanol, used in glass cleaner; and
glutaraldehyde, a disinfectant to eliminate bacteria.