Burning Questions at Gas Well
The flames shooting skyward in West Virginia left firefighters and
operators of the Marcellus shale operation groping for answers
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
8 June 2010
By Don Hopey and David Templeton,
MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. -- When volunteer firefighters arrived early Monday
at a gas-well explosion that sent flames soaring 60 feet skyward, they
had no idea what challenges they faced.
They had never been trained to fight gas-well fires, and the company in
charge, Chief Oil & Gas LLC, never instructed them how best to
fight a fire fed by methane or natural gas.
During their rush to the remote site off Beam's Lane, four miles east
of Moundsville, just off Route 250, they had only their wits and
experience in general firefighting to guide them.
"We were going into something at 1:20 a.m., but we didn't know what we
were going into," said Danny Holmes, chief of the Moundsville Volunteer
Fire Department, one of 20 to respond.
Adding to the uncertainty, firefighters arrived to find a ball of
flames piercing the night sky but could find no victims or company
employees anywhere on the site.
Seven workers from BJ Tubular Services, of Houston, and Union Drilling
Inc., headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, were working on the well when
it exploded sometime after 1 a.m. Two of the injured workers were
employed by BJ Tubular and five by Union Drilling, said Kathy Cosco, a
spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection.
The drilling rig, 115 feet high, was extensively damaged when it fell
onto its side with parts of it melted by intense flames. While unable
to extinguish the blaze, fire crews did prevent it from spreading
beyond the well pad to other equipment and storage trailers situated in
a clearing in the wooded hollow.
The seven crew members suffered burns to their faces, chests, hands and
arms. Marshall County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Kevin Cecil noted
some had sustained third-degree burns.
But no one was at the site when firefighters arrived because the crew,
whom Chief Oil & Gas officials refused to identify, piled into
vehicles after the explosion and fire and drove themselves to Reynolds
Memorial Hospital in Glendale, just north of Morgantown.
Several were transferred to Ohio Valley General Hospital, and
eventually all were taken by ambulances to West Penn Hospital Burn
Center in Pittsburgh because early morning fog was too thick for
helicopters to take off from the hospitals in West Virginia's Northern
Panhandle.
One was released Monday, said Stephanie Waite, spokeswoman for West
Penn-Allegheny Health Systems, and the rest are in fair condition with
injuries that do not appear to be life-threatening.
The closest residence was situated about a quarter-mile from the
drilling site, so no evacuation of residents was necessary. However,
Route 250 at Beam's Lane remained closed to traffic for 13 hours.
Officials from the West Virginia DEP, Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and Mine Safety and Health Administration were at the
site to investigate the cause of the explosion and fire. Firefighters
also will remain at the site until the fire burns itself out or is
extinguished.
Ms. Cosco said reports from the scene indicate the drilling may have
gotten into the Alexander Mine, where it hit a pocket of methane gas.
She said the Alexander Mine is inactive and owned by Pittsburgh-based
Consol Energy.
Kristi Gittins, spokeswoman for Chief Oil & Gas, said drilling
through pockets of methane does occur but the company never before had
an explosion or unexpected fire occur at any of its 75 wells. What
sparked the blast remains a mystery. Smoking is prohibited at drilling
sites, and she said the company knew about the mine, had met
requirements in investigating the site and in filing plans with the
West Virginia DEP on the drill path into the Marcellus shale formation.
One well already had been drilled at that pad. The explosion occurred
early in the drilling operation for a second well.
"We did know we were drilling in an abandoned coal mine," Ms. Gittins
said. "We had the maps. But when you are drilling, you can encounter
pockets of gas. But what happened? We don't know."
Union Drilling has a history of 29 workplace safety violations at
drilling sites in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Arizona, Colorado and
New York since July 2005, for which it paid more than $226,000 in
penalties, according to the federal Department of Labor Occupational
Safety and Health Administration's online inspections database.
The well was permitted to AB Resources of Brecksville, Ohio, the
operator, but owned by Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas, which since
2007 has drilled approximately 15 other Marcellus shale gas wells in
West Virginia and about 60 in Pennsylvania. A subsidiary, Chief
Gathering LLC, also operates natural gas pipelines in Bradford,
Clearfield, Fayette, Lycoming and Susquehanna counties in Pennsylvania.
Ms. Gittins said drilling had progressed to about 1,000 feet deep when
the explosion occurred.
"Nothing we did was unusual or unexpected. What caused the fire has yet
to be determined, but you can hit pockets of gas, that's not uncommon,"
Ms. Gittins said. "We had it contained fairly quickly, the area was
secured, there was no evacuation and the damage was limited to the
[well] pad site."
She said Chief has used Union Drilling for seven to 10 years, "and this
is the first incident we've had."
The well continues "flaring," or burning, gas "which is what you want
to happen," she added.
During a late afternoon news conference Monday, officials said that
Wild Well Control officials from Houston arrived at the scene about 1
a.m. with expectations of extinguishing the blaze within days.
Ms. Gittins acknowledged that Chief Oil & Gas had not contacted
firefighters or emergency officials in West Virginia prior to drilling
but now plans to meet with officials. She said the company had met with
emergency officials in Pennsylvania prior to drilling there.
Despite a lack of training in gas-well fires, volunteer firefighters
were able to prevent the blaze from spreading off the pad. Late Monday,
crews were busy removing equipment from the site, with additional plans
to drain holding ponds on the property.
The West Virginia explosion is the second major accident at a Marcellus
shale drilling operation in four days. On Friday, natural gas and
drilling fluids containing toxic pollutants escaped in a "blowout" from
a Marcellus shale well operated by EOG Resources in Clearfield County
on private property adjacent to the Moshannon State Forest.
Anya Sostek contributed. Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or
412-263-1983. David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or
412-263-1578.