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Fracking in Europe
Fracking in Europe
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november 2011
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the same scale. "Don't hold your breath," warned van Beurden, who studied chemical engineering at the Netherlands' Delft University. "In places iike North America, quite a lot of the landowners love to see a drilling rig because it means money in their pocket. In northwest Europe, however, mineral rights are generally held by the state, so the only thing landowners get is inconvenience." He explained that the region's comparatively dense population also posed a barrier to widespread operations, as large amounts of both wells and surface activity are needed to develop shale fields. Van Beurden insisted, however, that fracking "is not an invasive technology" and that much of the public opposition to its use is "not founded on scientific insights."
"What a lot of people don't realise is that we have been fracking wells since before the Second World War Just in the US we have, as an industry, fracked over a million wells without any major issue." He acknowledged that some incidents had been caused by smaller, independent companies with lower safety standards, but maintained that "there is no fundamental reason why [fracking] should be an issue." Though confident that Western Europe is unlikely to be dotted with wellheads any time soon, van Beurden acknowledged that the more eastern countries, such as Poland, stood a much higher chance of capitalising on their unconventional .' resources. /
EU court bCQis
Introducing surfactants into the mix reduces the tension between them to roughly a thousandth of its normal level, allowing the droplets of hydrocarbon to fiow much more easily. The process is being trialled at several sites throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the US. Currently, around 1 kg of surfactant produces 1 bbl of oil, though the compounds used are diluted to 0.3% of the volume of the water used.
november2011
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