Tuesday, January 17

Hydraulic fracturing fingered in oil well blowout




 Handout Innisfail, Alberta: January 01, 2008 --Workers clean up the aftermath of an oil spill in a farmer´s field 25-kilometres west of Innisfail January 13, 2012 ? provincial regulators believe hydraulic fracturing at a well about 1 km away from the affected pumpjack cause the rupture. Photo by , Handout (For Business section story by Dina O'Meara)

CALGARY — Hydraulic fracturing of an oil well in southern Alberta could have caused an oil well blowout a kilometre away, according to provincial regulators.

Friday afternoon, a landowner in the Garrington area west of Innisfail spotted a pumpjack spewing what appeared to be oil and chemicals onto his neighbour’s field.

Black fluid from the well sprayed 15 metres in the air until the man was able to alert a hydraulic fracturing crew working on a nearby well for Midway Energy. They halted operations at the site then shut down the Wild Stream Exploration pumpjack.


Edmonton Journal

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