Nathan VanderKlippe, Globe and Mail Update, Jul. 12, 2010
Failure at one of the company’s wellheads sent a plume of high-temperature steam into the air for nearly 36 hours last weekend
Devon Energy Corp. (DVN-N63.500.150.24%) has shut down seven wells at its Jackfish oil sands site after a failure at one of the wellheads sent a plume of bitumen-laced, high-temperature steam rocketing into the air for nearly 36 hours last weekend.
The leak began Saturday afternoon and was stopped Sunday at midnight.
“It’s what we would call a steam release leak and it did have bitumen in it,” spokeswoman Nadine Barber said. “That bitumen took the form of a mist or a spray.”
The company said it did not know the cause of the leak, nor how much petroleum was spilled, although it said bitumen coating the ground near the leak has made it difficult to work in the area.
Jackfish produces 35,000 barrels per day; it was not immediately clear how much of that production has been halted, nor when it could resume. It could take two to three weeks to clean up the spill, Ms. Barber said.
“No employees, no contractors, no community members were injured as a result,” Ms. Barber said. “There is no immediate threat to anyone in the area, including the community, and no evacuation required.”
Devon employs what’s known as steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, at its Jackfish site. Using that process, high-pressure steam is injected into the ground using a horizontal well; that steam then heats the bitumen, melting it out of the sand and causing it to flow into a second horizontal well that brings it to surface.
The leak happened in what industry calls the “producer well,” which extracts the bitumen.
The company uses what it calls a “pad” to drill multiple wells. The leaking well was on a pad with seven wells in total; all have been shut down for now.
Both Alberta Environment and Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board are investigating the leak.
