Cover Photo: North Central and Central WV Working Fires

Ten Local Fire Departments Extinguish Fire on Noble Energy’s Shirley 1 Pad

From an Article by Fred Connors, Wheeling Intelligencer, October 16, 2014

Alma, WV – Fire departments from four counties responded to a gas well pad fire Wednesday on WV Route 18 near Centerville.

Tyler County EMA Director Tom Cooper said today, Tyler County dispatch received a cell phone call at 10:10 p.m. Wednesday in which the caller reported a well pad fire near the WV Division of Highways facility on WV Route 18.

“The caller said all workers were safely evacuated from the pad and then we lost the phone connection,” he said. “Tyler County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene and verified that flames could be seen at the top of the hill.”

Cooper said (15) fire department (trucks) from Tyler, Wetzel, Pleasants and Doddridge counties responded. They extinguished the flames by 2 a.m. and no injuries were reported.

“The well site turned out to be Shirley One owned by Noble Energy,” he said.  ”Any estimate of damage will have to come from Noble Energy.” The site is one of two on WV Route 18 (a few miles south of Centerville).

Cooper said the call presented a particular problem for the Shirley Volunteer Fire Department. “As they were leaving the site, they broke an axle on the steep gravel road and had to call for a wrecker,” he said.

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Notes:

1. From the Charleston Gazette:  The company told state officials that a piece of equipment caught fire during “flowback operations,” when liquids flow back to the surface after the hydraulic fracturing of a well.

2. The fire response activity was monitored on the “North Central and Central WV Working Fires” community page on Facebook.  The responding fire companies were Alma, Greenwood, McCllelan, Middlebourne, Paden City, Pennsboro, Shirley, Sistersville, St. Marys, and West Union.  Ellenboro was on standby.

In March 2010, CONSOL Energy paid Dominion Resources $3.5 billion for 500,000 acres of Marcellus Shale gas leases, instantly tripling their lease holdings. CONSOL has continued to invest in Marcellus acreage and now has 750,000 acres under lease.  A map of the Marcellus holdings of CONSOL is shown in the article.

 Now, Noble Energy of Houston, TX, will buy a 50 percent interest in 663,350 net undeveloped acres and fund drilling and completion costs in a deal worth $3.4 billion over an eight-year period. This joint venture will concentrate on Indiana, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties in Pennsylvania as well as Barbour and Marshall counties in West Virginia. CONSOL plans to increase the number of drilling rigs its operating in the Marcellus region from four to eight this year, with further plans to increase that number to 12 rigs by 2013 and 16 rigs by 2015.

CONSOL will operate in the dry gas areas of the acreage, while Noble will operate the wet gas acreage. Wet gas contains ethane, propane and butane, in addition to the methane natural gas. Noble is expected to operate a portion of the dry gas area after the wet gas area has been fully developed.

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale drilling industry is posting huge gains in production. The state’s 1,632 working Marcellus wells produced 432.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas through the first six months of the year, a 60 percent increase over the amount of gas reported for the last six months of 2010, according to the PA Department of Environmental Protection.  Bradford, Susquehanna and Tioga counties in northern Pennsylvania led with 260 billion cubic feet, The Times-Tribune of Scranton reported. A well drilled by EQT Production Co. in Greene County produced the most gas in the reporting period, 3 billion cubic feet.