The Importance of Accuracy of Facts Supporting Justice Based Social License-to-Operate Arguments for CSG Development: Information From Four Decades of CBM Production in North America

Abstract

Environmental concerns have been aired about hazards associated with large scale Coal Seam Gas (CSG) development in Australia. Uncertainties about future impacts have called into question the social licence to operate of CSG operators. A recent conceptual basis for the social license to operate suggests that a “justice-based approach” can form the basis for such a framework. Special interest and stakeholder groups have set out to engender broad opposition to CSG. They have done so in part by marshalling “facts” regarding CSG largely based on a selective use of shale gas reports from the US. In almost all cases the facts regarding shale gas (even if they are correct) are inappropriate to apply to CSG. Similarly inappropriate are “facts” assembled from long-wall or other mining operations. The well-established track record of coal bed methane (CBM) extraction should provide more appropriate information. We have conducted a study of five key issues based on US CBM experience: produced water management; impact on aquifers; threat of chemical contamination of water resources; methane emissions; and ground subsidence. Commencing in the mid 1980's, by 2000 over 14,000 wells had been drilled there. Numerous research studies have included two major official, independent reviews of environmental performance. Produced water volumes have been often a factor of two less than those initially predicted by modelling. The area of significant drawdown in the hydraulic head in key aquifers has been up to a factor of five less than that predicted by widely quoted model studies. It is significant that no documented examples of water contamination associated with CBM development in North America have been scientifically verified. The cases where water contamination was suspected have been reviewed by a congressionally mandated study by the US EPA that concluded none could be ascribed to CBM. In almost all CBM producing basins in North America methane contamination of groundwater clearly predated gas development. In some cases poor practices in the early days of production have exacerbated methane issues. Comparison of observed subsidence associated with North American CBM fields, suggests that predictions of deci-meters to meters of subsidence for Australian CSG fields is highly unlikely. Maximum total subsidence of a few centimetres over a long spatial wavelength should be expected in most cases.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90217 © 2015 International Conference & Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia, September 13-16, 2015