Legislators rail waste of natural gas
Going up in flames
Legislators rail waste of natural gas
By STU MERRY
BHG NEWS SERVICE
It’s estimated that about 23 percent of natural gas is being “flared,” or burned off daily from North Dakota oil wells. Officials calculate that to be about 80 million cubic feet.
For a comparison, Montana-Dakota Utilities customers in North Dakota (about 90,000) use approximately 8.1 billion cubic feet per year. This does not include commercial consumption.
District 4 Sen. John Warner, D-Ryder, said he’d like to change the amount burned off into the atmosphere reduces – substantially if possible. At this past Saturday’s Garrison Chamber of Commerce Governmental Affairs Committee meeting, Warner said he’d like to see the gas sequestered and trucked to the nearest pipeline.
Warner told the group of about 25 that Senate Bill 2355 is an attempt to come up with an interim solution by developing an at-the-well compression system that would then allow the trucking of natural gas up to 25 miles to the nearest pipeline. The gas would then in turn be carried it to the nearest gas plant.
