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Workers clean up the aftermath of an oil spill in a farmer´s field 25-kilometres west of Innisfail January 13, 2012. Provincial regulators believe hydraulic fracturing at a well about 1 km away from the affected pumpjack cause the rupture. Photo courtesy, Alberta Surface Rights Group |
Hydraulic fracturing fingered in oil well blowout
Oil sprayed on farmer’s land near Innisfail
By Dina O'Meara,
Calgary Herald
January 17, 2012
CALGARY - Hydraulic fracturing of an oil well in southern Alberta could have caused an oil well blowout a kilometre away, according to provincial regulators.
Friday afternoon, a landowner in the Garrington area west of Innisfail spotted a pumpjack spewing what appeared to be oil and chemicals onto his neighbour's field.
Black fluid from the well sprayed 15 metres in the air until the man was able to alert a hydraulic fracturing crew working on a nearby well for Midway Energy.
They halted operations at the site, then shut down the Wild Stream Exploration pumpjack.
The Energy Resource Conservation Board was alerted about 5: 30 p.m. Friday by the Alberta Surface Rights Group at the behest of the landowner.
"We don't know the details yet . . . but my understanding is that it appears the fracturing process affected the other well," said an ERCB spokeswoman, Cara Tobin.
The incident could have repercussions around North America as the industry grapples with rising public discontent over rapidly increasing use of the technology to unlock shale gas and oil reserves.
Fluids blasted deep into the earth under high pressure appear to have intersected underground with the second well, forcing oil up through the well bore at explosive rates.
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