You're reading: Unconventional drilling for gas could contaminate Ukraine’s drinking water

Ukraine’s government hopes drilling for unconventional gas will ease the nation’s dependence on increasingly expensive Russian gas, but the required drilling method has raised environmental concerns among scientists and politicians.

Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron won tenders in May to explore for unconventional gas in eastern and western Ukraine. If successful, the exploration could lead to industrial gas extraction by 2018-19. That, in turn, could reduce Russian political influence on Ukraine by making it less dependent on Russian gas imports.

But the method of drilling – hydraulic fracturing – has been banned by several European countries because of its supposed environmental hazards. Other countries have placed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing until more information is available.

The added fear of using hydraulic fracturing – also called fracking – in Ukraine is that it could pollute drinking water supplies in a nation that is already facing a shortage.

Hydraulic fracturing, or ”fracking,” is a stimulation technique used to increase the amount of natural gas that can be extracted from shale. This method of gas extraction has raised environmental concerns serious enough to be banned by several European countries, although in America development of shale gas has helped lower prices considerably.

The process involves injecting millions of liters of water mixed with chemicals and sand at high pressures into rock formations that contain trapped natural gas.

The water pressure and the chemicals open up cracks in the rock to free up gas and make it possible to trap it. The “flowback” – the water and chemicals pumped back up to the surface – is then stored for reuse or cleaning.

According to U.S.-based investigative news agency ProPublica’s reports, benzene, lead and formaldehyde – all carcinogens – are just some of the chemicals used.

Martin Stute, a hydrologist at Columbia University in New York City, named four ways ground water could be contaminated: spills during transport; overflows from storage pits after heavy rains; improper cement sealing of the pipe carrying the liquid; if liquid rises around the bore through the space created by the drilling.

As for whether it is possible to frack without contaminating groundwater, Stute said the jury is still out.
“I don’t think we really know enough yet, because the scientific community has not studied that issue long enough,” he said.

“And we have to rely on what industry is saying. Of course, they are biased.”
The minister of ecology and natural resources, Eduard Stavitskyj, told Dzerkalo Tyzhnya that the ministry is doing thorough work on the ecological aspects of the projects and that Shell and Chevron’s proposals had separate sections on ecology.

But concerns about the environmental impact of fracking have been raised by legislators in western Ukraine, where Chevron is expected to drill. Legislators in Lviv oblast, for example, have cried foul that they have not been included in negotiations between Ukraine’s government and Chevron despite being representatives of the region’s population.

Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has linked contamination of water supplies to fracking, Shell’s Ukraine spokesman, Anna Dumanska, said that fracking is safe “under the condition that all drilling norms are adhered to and wells are built safely.”

Shell prefers to spend more money and time on the process than to have to face the consequences of lax enforcement of the company’s own regulations later on, she said.

Chevron project manager Greg Hild, who specializes in geology, said that in the U.S., Chevron uses safety measures that go beyond those required by law, and is working towards developing ever-safer technologies.

“The risks can be managed to near zero,” he said.

One industry source told the Kyiv Post that Russia has lobbied hard to block the use of unconventional gas exploration technologies in order to preserve its dominant position as a gas supplier in the region.

Keith Smith, Senior Associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies claimed in a report this month that some European environmental organizations that oppose the use of fracking are funded with Russian sources.

Kyiv Post staff writer Fedor Zarkhin can be reached at [email protected].