Published: November 5, 2018 |

[Click image to enlarge]

The second day of the 2018 Shale Insight Conference began with a look at research going on in Morgantown to help the natural gas industry overcome some of its challenges, along with a presentation on industry cybersecurity.

Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute, spoke about work being conducted at WVU’s Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory, much of which is done in conjunction with the National Energy Technology Laboratory and Northeast Energy, among others.

“We’re doing a lot of work on instrumenting these wells, and we hope this is useful to the industry in increasing efficiency and production and recovery rates,” he said.

Ziemkiewicz noted there are also environmental components to the work at the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory.

That’s where the West Virginia Water Research Institute comes into play, doing research such as studying the organic and inorganic chemicals associated with well operations and water quality, he said.

“We’re finding the growth and drop-off rates of the different chemistries, and we’re finding that the produced water has a great deal of salinity, levels off for a few years, then starts dropping off fairly rapid in some of the six-year-old or seven-year-old wells,” he explained.

Ziemkiewicz also said drill cuttings have caused controversy because some people have claimed they become radioactive. However, tests at the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory were conducted with green completion fluids (which reduce emissions) on 18 cutting samples in two wells.

“We found that they’re not radioactive and pass the TCLP (toxicity characteristic leaching procedure) test, so we’re not entirely sure why they keep having to go to a special landfill when they can be used beneficially for other uses that are not considered hazardous.”

In other conference business, former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum moderated a panel on the issue of cybersecurity, an issue he said is the one threat that can undermine the country’s ability to be strong and successful. He added that government entities are well prepared for a cyberattack, but industries such as energy, retail and entertainment are still vulnerable.

Matt LaVigna, CEO of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, said preventing cyberattacks comes down to making sure nothing untoward goes unreported, along with adequate training from the lowest ranking employees to company executives.

“That’s blunt, but you’re not doing your company justice if you’re not training to know what’s out there,” he said.

Another panelist, @RISK Technologies President and former U.S. Army Ranger Sean O’Brien, said the primary motivation behind cyberattacks from abroad comes down to a combination of low income in other countries combined with a serious know-how in computer technology. This, he said, often takes the form of students trying to acquire more money for schooling or underpaid systems analysts trying to provide for their families in a way they know how to.

However, O’Brien said cybersecurity is not dissimilar to being chased by a bear: One does not need a network fortress, but rather a network that is better protected than others, since hackers tend to keep going until they find an easy target.

“Cybersecurity is a top-of-the-line issue for our entire industry,” West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association Director Anne Blankenship said, reflecting on the presentations. “Today’s panel provided a timely and informative dive into that topic.”

Source: WVNews

Be in-the-know when you’re on-the-go!