Environmentally Friendly Production of Unconventional Natural Gas Resources

摘要

Clean burning natural gas begins with producing the gas in an environmentally friendly manner. Industry has made great strides in protecting the environment while increasing natural gas production in the U.S. Producers, however, still face daunting challenges to effectively produce more natural gas in environmentally sensitive areas. The Environmentally Friendly Drilling (EFD) program combines new low-impact technologies that reduce the footprint of drilling activities, integrates light weight drilling rigs with reduced emission engine packages, addresses on-site waste management, optimizes the systems to fit the needs of a specific development sites and provides stewardship of the environment. In addition, the program includes industry, the public, environmental organizations, and elected officials in a collaboration that addresses concerns on development of unconventional natural gas resources in environmentally sensitive areas. The EFD program provides the fundamentals to result in greater access, reasonable regulatory controls, lower development cost and reduction of the environmental footprint associated with operations for unconventional natural gas.