- Bishop Hill blog

I was on BBC Radio Scotland's Kaye Adams programme this morning, discussing unconventional oil and gas and INEOS's recently announced charm initiative. Audio is available here. The fracking slot was right from the top of the show.

I came in after ten minutes or so, facing off against an American green called Joshua Brown who came out fighting and left abruptly, apparently with his tail between his legs. I fear that between us Kaye and I may have left his reputation a little the worse for wear.

Update on Mar 19, 2015 by

Bishop Hill

James Verdon tweets to point out that most of the injection wells in Oklahoma are actually not even peripherally related to fracking. It comes from a process related to conventional production in areas where the well contains high levels of water. By dewatering, the oil becomes extractable.

The dewatering process is one which allows for extensive oil and gas production in fields generally known to contain oil and gas but bypassed by certain other operators due to high water saturation of reservoirs. Dewatering is simply the removal of these large volumes of water, which in turn reduces the pressure on trapped hydrocarbons and allows them to move to the wellbore (a physical hole that makes up the well), for recovery.