WorldWide Drilling Resource

2015 Rule on Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal Lands is Rescinded Adapted from a Press Release by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced its final rule to rescind the 2015 final rule entitled, Oil and Gas; Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands . The 2015 rule was intended to ensure wells were properly constructed to protect water sup- plies, fluids that flow back to the surface as a result of hydraulic fracturing operations were being managed in an environmentally responsible way, and provided public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids. To achieve these goals, a long list of requirements were to be imposed on gas and oil operators. However, the rule was actually never placed in effect since it was immediately challenged in court. On March 28, 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the Secretary of the Interior to review four specific rules, including the 2015 rule, to make sure it was consistant with the order’s goal of promoting clean and safe development of energy resources, while avoiding ‘‘regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation.’’ While reviewing the 2015 final rule, they discovered all 32 of the 32 states with federal gas and oil leases have reg- ulations addressing hydraulic fracturing, and a lot of the regulations would have been duplicated with the 2015 rule. They also realized that since the 2015 final rule was published, more companies were using state regulatory agencies and/or databases such as FracFocus to dis- close the chemical content of hydraulic fracturing fluids. The review included an evaluation of state laws and regulations. Seeking a way to reduce the costs of regulatory compliance, the BLM pub- lished a proposed rule to rescind the 2015 final rule, last summer. Rescinding the rule, returns the affected sections of the Code of Federal Regulations to the lan- guage which existed immediately before the 2015 rule (except for changes made by other rules/definitions published dur- ing that time). According to the BLM, approximate- ly 1700 production wells were, or would be, drilled in 2017 on federal and Indian lands. Of those wells, roughly 90% were completed using hydraulic fracturing to stimulate production. Combined with the significant technological advances in horizontal directional drilling, hydraulic fracturing is frequently used to access previously inaccessible resources of gas and oil in tight shale formations across the country. The BLM estimates rescinding this final rule will provide a reduction in com- pliance costs of around $9500 per well or approximately $14 - $34 million per year. 17 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MARCH 2018