September 28 2012 at 08:00am
By Keith Bryer

Amid the furore created by those opposed to fracking for shale gas that may or may not exist thousands of metres below the Karoo, little attention has been paid to the possibility that the opponents of fracking may be tilting at windmills, for there is another way of fracking that does not involve millions of litres of water.

The method is called propane fracking and instead of water it uses propane gas in gel form. The advantages of using this method are considerable: less water for one; no seepage from polluted water into the water table, for another, and less chemicals used all round. To which one could add, fewer water trucks rumbling up and down and no slimes dams.

With this knowledge freely available to both protesters and proponents, one wonders why it is discounted?

The latest to pooh-pooh the gel method was Shell’s Jan-Willem Eggink who was quoted as saying “the technology will have to be developed a lot”.

It was a curiously abrupt dismissal of a method that could, at a stroke, get most of the green protesters off Shell’s back.

One suspects that this official Shell reaction is driven by the well known “Not invented here syndrome”, plus of course the possibility that it might prove more expensive a method than using water.

Still, for a company subject to blistering attacks by the Green lobby it seems odd that Shell has not invested in the method.

It doesn’t take much research to find out who has used it and with what results.

In fact the Greens in the US are already advocating its use instead of water, based on the Canadian experience where gel has been used successfully 1 000 times since 2008 (surely enough for Shell to notice).

This waterless method was developed by a small energy company, called Gas Frac, based in Calgary, Alberta. It still does not have a patent in the US but its method has been tested in Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Used instead of water, the gel is pumped down more than a kilometre to create pressure that cracks the rock to release the gas. The gel turns back into gas before flowing up to the surface where it can be recaptured to turn into gel again.

The gas does not bring with it drilling chemicals, sea salts and radioactive elements, unlike water, which does.

The oil industry is deeply conservative and engineers prefer using tried and tested techniques rather than new ones. If the old way works, there is no incentive to change.

There is also not much data on the subject and patents being what they are, one can understand inventor secrecy.

What is difficult to understand is the reluctance of the local anti-fracking lobby to insist that Shell and the others use gel instead of water, and the lack of investment and research into the pros and cons of the gel technique by Shell.

If anything could change the appalling, if unjustified in most cases, reputation that Shell has among the environmentally conscious, it would be for Shell to emerge as the champion of a method that is as green as it is possible to get in the industry.

Although the gel method is young, Canada sees its potential. Gas Frac has secured a $100 million (R821m) loan from HSBC Bank Canada, Bank of Montreal and the Alberta State Treasury to expand operations. It is a great pity the companies planning to exploit our shale gas reserves (if they find them) are not thinking the same way.

* Keith Bryer is a retired corporate communications consultant with wide experience in the extractive industries. He writes in his personal capacity.