New alliance for low-impact drilling

Houston Advanced Research Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable development, and Texas A&M University have announced a partnership with seven other U.S. universities to fund research into the development of oil and gas drilling technologies that have low environmental impacts, and to share the results of that research.

“We will consider all aspects of energy resource recovery, not only traditional oil and natural gas production but also unconventional production such as natural gas from shale or coalbed methane,” said Rich Haut, manager of the new alliance.

The partnership is an offshoot of a U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory-funded project to identify and develop low-impact drilling systems, DOE said Feb. 25. That project, which ends on March 31, identified 90 technologies that could significantly reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas operations; established an oil and gas desert test center near Pecos, Texas; established an approach for optimizing drilling decisions; and developed a process to convert drilling waste into a useable product, DOE said.

The development of technologies that make oil and gas accessible in environmentally sensitive areas could contribute to future job growth, DOE said.

—Alan Bailey