{"id":4210,"date":"2012-01-06T13:03:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T19:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=4210"},"modified":"2012-01-09T11:39:46","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T17:39:46","slug":"chesapeake-fracking-well-catches-fire-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/06\/chesapeake-fracking-well-catches-fire-oklahoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Chesapeake Fracking Well Fire in Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fracking has suffered some particularly bad PR over the past few months. First, the EPA linked the hydraulic fracturing drilling process (where a mix of water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground through horizontal wells to release oil and gas deposits) to <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/08\/fracking-contaminated-water-supply-epa-says\/\">contamination of water in Wyoming<\/a>. Then, on New Year&#8217;s Eve an <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/02\/what-we-know-fracking-activity-and-the-ohio-earthquake\/\">intense earthquake struck Youngstown, Ohio<\/a>. It was the eleventh quake since March, and seismologists <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/05\/what-you-need-to-know-about-earthquakes-and-fracking\/\">linked it to a deep well used for disposing fracking wastewater<\/a>. State officials suspended the well, and the Mayor of Youngstown went so far as to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2012-01-05\/ohio-mayor-buys-quake-insurance-as-he-seeks-answers-on-fracking.html\">buy earthquake insurance for his home<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And last night in Oklahoma, a fracking well caught fire. Here&#8217;s the video from the website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drillingahead.com\/page\/nomac-rig-17-blowout-chesapeake-energy#ixzz1if0qWbNK\">Drilling Ahead<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/smpw0Ee-OuQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A report from the website says the rig, owned by Nomac, a subsidiary of the<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/tag\/chesapeake-energy\/\"> fracking giant Chesapeake<\/a>, &#8220;drilled into a shallow gas pocket soon after spudding in at a drilling depth of 900&#8242; northwest of Sweetwater, Oklahoma&#8221; around 6 p.m. on January 5. There are no reported injuries.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upstreamonline.com\/live\/article296788.ece\">confirmed the blowout to Upstream<\/a>, a paper that covers the oil and gas industry. They learned that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The rig had spud the Davis 30 12-26 well four miles northwest of Sweetwater in western Oklahoma. It was drilling ahead at 900 feet when it hit a zone of pressurized gas, which quickly flowed back up the well and caught fire.<\/p>\n<p>Operations were at such an early stage that a raft of safety equipment had not been hooked up yet, including the blowout preventer and gas separator.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drillingahead.com\/page\/nomac-rig-17-blowout-chesapeake-energy#ixzz1if0qWbNK\">read an account of the blowout<\/a> and hear what workers and residents had to say on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drillingahead.com\/page\/nomac-rig-17-blowout-chesapeake-energy#ixzz1if0qWbNK\">Drilling Ahead&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What happens when a well blows out? Special teams of &#8220;well wranglers&#8221; jump in to extinguish the fire and cap the well. You can read our report from Thursday on <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/05\/when-wells-blow-out-in-pennsylvania-texans-step-in\/\">Texan emergency blow out teams working on wells in Pennsylvania here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fracking has suffered some particularly bad PR over the past few months. First, the EPA linked the hydraulic fracturing drilling process (where a mix of water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground through horizontal wells to release oil and gas deposits) to contamination of water in Wyoming. Then, on New Year&#8217;s Eve an intense [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[15,22,21],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4210"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4216,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4210\/revisions\/4216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}