Announcing the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems Program
The Environmentally Friendly Drilling (EFD: www.efdsystems.com) program, managed by the
Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), is a long term project that has been funded the US
Department of Energy, the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) and
Industry. The team includes academic institutions, national laboratories, research organizations
and small businesses under the guidance of industry, environmental organizations and
government agencies. The program focuses on technologies for developing energy sources that
can be cost effectively applied in environmentally sensitive areas to maintain our standard of
living and preserve our quality of life. The objective is to identify, develop and transfer critical,
cost effective, new technologies that can provide policy makers and industry with the ability to
develop reserves in a safe and environmentally friendly manner.
Transatlantic Cooperation
On both sides of the Atlantic, it is important to address environmental tradeoffs associated with
energy development. Innovation knows no geographic boundaries. The EFD program will be
expanded to include a European Chapter with the goal to identify and apply best practices in
Europe as well as to identify new innovations and applications. Regulatory requirements in
countries that have strict regulatory standards (sometimes stricter than in the US) cause
innovation and lead to the development of new technologies that could be applied in the US as
well as Europe. Having both a US and a European EFD programs enables all operators and
regulators to learn about technologies being developed and implemented throughout the
world, fostering relationships between Europe and the USA. European operations will be able
to learn about technologies that have been cost effectively applied in environmentally sensitive
areas within the US, for example, produced water and hydraulic fracturing technologies.
The EFD program addresses new low‐impact technology that reduces the footprint of drilling
activities, integrates light weight drilling rigs with reduced emission engine packages, addresses
on‐site waste management, optimizes the systems to fit the needs of a specific development
sites and provides stewardship of the environment.
Next Steps
The 2010 SPE Annual Technical Conference is scheduled to be held in Florence, Italy in September. This provides an
excellent opportunity for launching a European EFD Chapter. The EFD management team has been working with
Gerhard Thonhauser with the University of Leoben to explore the possibility of establishing an EFD European chapter
and organizing the SPE panel and complementary workshop.
Funding
Due to US government restrictions, funding for the European initiative cannot come from
RPSEA. At least one Industry Sponsor (service company/operator) is required to initiate the
European program. The new sponsor would become a member of the EFD program with the
sponsorship fee (US $100,000) being split on the workshop and on a mutually accepted task, for
example, a report on best practices in certain environmentally challenging region(s) that can be
presented at the workshop. The results of the workshop will be provided to EFD members who
cannot participate. Additional sponsorship funding may be used to fund the development of
technologies, processes and methods that may be applied to environmentally sensitive areas in
Europe.
Contact:
Professor Gerhard Thonhauser
Chair of Drilling and Completion Engineering
School of Petroleum Engineering
Montanuniversität Leoben
info@petroleumengineer.at
+43 3842 402 3051
For further information, please visit the EFD web site: www.efdsystems.com.