Gas found at Khon Kaen drilling site

[kennw]

Don't know all the fact but 6 MMscfd is a small delivery. Flaring at the pre - production stage is necessary to determine the rate of flow,well capacity and the gas composition. My guess is the locals have been fired up to milk the cash cow.

Tell them that the gas will be used to produce electricity for their region. Logic: no gas no electricity, true for everyone not just them.

[tbthailand]

If it is going to be as profitable as they claim,

why not pay to relocate the villagers to a safe location?

or even share the profits with the impacted, local community...

[GOLDBUGGY]

" But a local environment group warned that petroleum production in the area would severely affect nearby villagers' lives because of the pollution the drilling would emit. "

Presumably the villagers have abandoned using their own cars, motorbikes & iron-buffaloes, to reduce local-impact of burning petroleum products ?

And if the gas will be piped to a site sixteen miles away, wouldn't that be removing the current problem, from their immediate vicinity ... they should welcome construction of the pipeline !

The pipeline will not remove the need for a flare at the well head location or separtion plant, if that what they have there, not sure how its all set up

So they will build a pipeline, to carry away the gas produced to where it can be used productively, yet still be flaring gas at the start of the pipeline rather than sending it away, doesn't make much sense to me ?

I can understand flaring gas, at an oil-production well-head, it's an unwanted/uncommercial by-product.

Would any of our more-expert posters care to comment, on why the current flaring (for test-purposes) seems to be producing so much pollution, in this particular case ? Is that normal ?

Gas Wells generally don't have there own Flares. They are set up with Christmas Trees (series of manual valves) including Automatic Shut-in Valves, which close at the Well under upset conditions.

I don't have all the information either but I think this Flare is temporary set up for the Well Testing Procedure. To test a Gas Well they need to bring in Mobile Well Testing Equipment to measure the pressure, temperature and flow, as well a means to collect samples for testing the composition. Part of this test is to determine the maximum flow rate this well can produce, so that they can come up with a number like 6.5 MMscf/d.

To do that they need to find a place to flare this gas during testing, which a performance test usually runs 30 days, once they are all set up. If successful they will then shut in the Well and build the pipeline and from thereafter all Flaring with be done in the Gas Plant. Even if Separation Equipment is employed, which I doubt for just one well, all you have is a Pressure Release Valve (PSV) which would release excess pressure to the atmosphere. But this PSV is always set a lot higher than the Automatic Shut-in Valves to the Gas Well and in many case higher than what this Gas Well can produce. So it seldom blows, if ever.

You will see a Gas Flare burning at 6.5 MMscf/d and also hear it from 1.7 km away, but it shouldn't be so loud that you can't hear your TV or can't sleep. Since it is a temporary flare it will not be equipped with air blowers or steam, and although Methane Gas burns cleanly, there will be some black smoke associated with this also. But no near worst then the burning of the Sugar Cane Field after harvest either.

Getting the Local Community involved in this project would help quiet them down. Perhaps offering them unskilled employment when they can and making their village the priority for summer employment for their kids also helps. Painter are always need for corrosion protection and just about anyone can paint. Donations to the local school for new projects or books and a Scholarship for one of the locals, is a good move as well and not that expensive. .

[graemeaylward]

I'm confused, is this natural gas or oil that is being talked about here?

[Soutpeel]

I'm confused, is this natural gas or oil that is being talked about here?

Gas, Thailand has very little oil but a bit of condy as well

[Soutpeel]

If it is going to be as profitable as they claim,

why not pay to relocate the villagers to a safe location?

or even share the profits with the impacted, local community...

Why should there be profit share with locals ?, let me clear on,this community uplift projects no problem, the operator should be doing this

but profit share ?....er no the local community is not taking the risk and they are not fronting the cost of the operations until there is a possible profit

Not sure how land rights versus minerals etc works in Thailand, but in a lot of countries, once get to a certain depth below the ground, the property own no longer "owns" that land with respect to anything that could be mined or extracted

If thailand has similar laws, if they are are extracting gas at say 10 to 14000 foot below the ground, it aint the landowners gas anyway..

[Ricardo]

Thanks to our more-learned posters, for their contributions, this sort of thing is always interesting !

Regarding industry-jargon, presumably "condy" means gas/oil-condensates ?

[Soutpeel]

Thanks to our more-learned posters, for their contributions, this sort of thing is always interesting !

Regarding industry-jargon, presumably "condy" means gas/oil-condensates ?

Gas condensate....sorry... a very lucrative commodity if you can find it

[kennw]

Sir's the people do share in the profits. Hydrocarbon contracts usually have a production share clause, in some countries it is 60/40 for oil, 70/30 for gas (producer/Govt). Thus all Thais benefit because they are the owners and it is up to the government to decide how these benefits are spent.

[Gonsalviz]

I worked in the Gulf of Mexico, not in, but around the O/G industry. Flares are for the testing and other things. They will always be there.

There was a time when the EPA decided that the flares could not be burned because they produced too much pollution, which is BS but never mind. Then, the helicopters that worked on the rigs started having experiences of raw gas ingestion which had a devastating effect on controlling the power output on those turbine engines.

Then they decided to flare the gas underwater which of course riled the environmentalists. Well, as it turned out, the fish loved it more than the rigs themselves. Those fish had a blast getting bubbled to the top.

So anyway, here we are now, with too much carbon in the air.

Environmentalists must make money somehow.