Googled from french: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/environnement/dossiers/gaz-de-schiste/201010/14/01-4332290-gaz-de-schiste-six-puits-autorises-dun-coup.php

Shale gas, six wells of a sudden allowed

SAINT-HYACINTHE) The Ministry of the Environment for the first time allowed over a shale gas wells in a single certificate, facilitating the procedure previously required a certificate of authorization for each well.

The Centre-du-Québec Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) granted permission for a new genre in June at the Talisman.

"Inside of a certificate of authorization, it allowed six wells in a decade, said Francine Audet MDDEP. It's an approach that has been made which is different from the well by well. "

The authorization is valid for hydraulic fracturing of six wells will be drilled from the same drilling platform in the municipality of Fortierville, in Lotbinière.

That's what we learned yesterday in the Bureau's investigation of public hearings on the environment (BAPE) on the sustainable development of shale gas industry.

Ms. Audet said that the Department's authorization wife that granted by the Commission preserve agricultural land, also for a platform which will be drilled more wells.

Talisman has made another request for a platform multiforages in the municipality of Sainte-Gertrude, according to Vincent Perron, spokesman for the company. This request is still under investigation.

This new step in the direction of greater efficiency in the licensing process, what industry wants.

Yesterday, the spokesman of the Oil and Gas Association of Quebec, Hope Deveau-Henderson, said that Pennsylvania was one of the states most effective in permitting gas drilling, with a period of 30 to 45 days.

Regulations of Pennsylvania, however, is being tightened in many respects, said yesterday by telephone officials of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) of that State.

A new draft regulation on the shielding of the wells was approved and will be submitted to the legislature. It responds to incidents of contamination of drinking water high-profile that took place in the Dimock area in north-western state.

Another draft law was drafted after the well blowout near Pittsburgh in June. This time, it intends to ask the gas company to install two different barriers preventing the return of gas and fluids during the drilling.

In this regard, the Department of Natural Resources (MNR) said he will also draw on best practices in the United States, not only in Alberta and British Columbia. "We are pleased to have heard the people of Pennsylvania and the measures taken in terms of forms," said Jean-Yves Laliberté MRNF.

Yesterday, the BAPE has heard from several experts try to identify risks of contamination of drinking water is by gas or by drilling fluids and fracturing.

Pennsylvania officials said the contamination is always due to defects in the design of the wells. "It is not associated with fracturing, said Eugene Pine, Pennsylvania DEP. There was no confirmed case of infection due to fracturing itself. "

According to another industry expert, hydrogeologist John Conrad, a study of 2400 fractures in the Barnett Shale in Texas, published during the summer in the Oil & Gas Journal, shows that in the worst case it remains at least 1000 meters of impermeable rock between the cracks created by the fracturing and deepest points of the potable underground water sources.