Office of Mineral Resources

New Haynesville Shale Zone urban drilling rules set

Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation James H. Welsh has issued an order, effective as of Aug.1, 2009, to establish practices, safeguards and regulations for natural gas exploration and production in urban areas of the Haynesville Shale.

The order follows months of study and research by Office of Conservation staff and an ad hoc committee created by the Commissioner – including representation from Office of Conservation staff, local governmental officials and industry -- and a public hearing and comment process on the initial draft order.

“We drafted this order keeping in mind the dual goals of the Office of Conservation – encouraging responsible development of our state’s natural resources while maintaining the protection of the people of the state and their property,” Welsh said.

Welsh said he issued an order focused on managing exploration and production operations in the Haynesville Shale Zone because of the intense development of the area and the proximity of exploration operation to densely populated areas.

“The discovery of the Haynesville Shale has offered our people and our state a great economic opportunity, but the development of that opportunity must be handled in a responsible way,” Welsh said. “Operators in the Haynesville Shale area must also be good neighbors and good stewards of the land they are using, and this order sets the standards for that.”

The order encompasses such issues as well setbacks from buildings; drilling operation concerns such as fencing, dust, noise and work hours; water use; and upkeep of drill sites.

Many issues raised in the public hearing process, such as pipeline rules, use of blowout preventers and penalties for violations of the order are not specifically addressed in the order, because they are common to all drilling sites under the regulation of the Office of Conservation and already covered by existing rules.

Some questions in the public hearing process also touched on using the rules Texas developed for exploration of the Barnett Shale as a template for Haynesville Shale regulations. While the issues involved in the two areas are often similar, the geological and geophysical differences between the Barnett and the Haynesville require different procedures, equipment specifications and timelines. The differences mean that the rules and restrictions used in the Barnett Shale are not always directly applicable to operations in the Haynesville Shale.

The Office of Conservation developed the new order based on observations and surveys of actual practices of operators working on Haynesville Shale sites with the intent of minimizing disruptions to citizens in the most densely populated parts of the area.

The order and the public hearing comments and responses can be found by clicking here.