New Fracking ETF Looks Past the Backlash

Despite a gathering storm of environmental concerns over the use of extreme hydraulic drilling techniques, or ‘fracking’, Van Eck Global recently launched the first U.S.-listed exchange-traded frack fund. FRAK offers “pure-play exposure” to companies such as Chesapeake Energy Corp., Devon Energy Corp., Eog Resources, Noble Energy, and Occidental Petroleum Corp., all of which use these unconventional methods to tap methane, oil and natural gas. The fund essentially is a bet that the nation’s energy needs will trump concerns over the environmental impact of fracking, or at least that such concerns will be relatively easy to manage.

Hydraulic drilling bores at a diagonal angle to hit the horizontal reservoirs — as opposed to sending a drill straight down — which greatly increases the chances of hitting the targeted deposits, say proponents. But the process also entails drilling through miles of rock and fracturing the shale with a voluminous cocktail of locally drawn water, sand and chemicals, some toxic, injected under extreme pressure to release the gases. And that has contaminated local drinking water and air and allegedly produced other public hazards, including earthquakes.

Van Eck’s Market Vectors Unconventional Oil & Gas ETF (FRAK) takes these concerns more or less in stride. Fracking is considered “a quantum leap” from historic methods of gas and oil drilling that makes extraction from hard to reach deposits much more feasible, says Shawn Reynolds, a senior energy analyst for Van Eck. “It allows you to access resources from areas that haven’t been profitable in volumes that made sense economically,” Reynolds explains.

然而，政治间隙明显酝酿着。2005年，布什政府创造了什么批评者呼叫哈里伯顿漏洞，最后一分钟豁免被插入能源法案，以便于当时的副总统和前哈里伯顿首席执行官迪克切尼。这剥离了EPA在液压压裂中使用的注射孔，由20世纪40年代的哈里伯顿发明了一种过程。

But after reports of air and water contamination near fracking operations, the EPA last year verified that fracking chemicals, including benzine, had appeared in a Wyoming aquifer, that methane gas was found in Pennsylvania drinking water and that fracking chemicals were detected in air quality tests in Texas.

“直到这些漏洞填充，天然气行业将继续将环境和健康风险纳入风险，”塞拉克俱乐部的天然气改革运动主任Deb Nardone说。果然，空气和水污染结果产生了旨在削减使用压缩的国家和联邦立法。

由民主党人纽约国家代表·莫里斯·莫里斯·莫里斯·莫里斯·莫里斯·莫里斯·赫科尼（Demulton）的一项法案致力于关闭Halliburton Loophole。另一个房屋比尔，科罗拉多民主党戴安娜戴特特技推出的2011年的压裂责任和2011年化学品法案的认识将废除与安全饮用水法的压缩类似的豁免。这两个账单都需要披露该过程中使用的化学品，其中一些被认为是商业秘密。

Meanwhile, high-volume hydraulic fracturing has been banned in New York state pending the results of an environmental impact review by authorities there. While the review is likely to be completed later this year, high-volume hydraulic fracturing will not be allowed in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds regardless of its findings, Emily DeSantis, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, tells亚博赞助欧冠。新泽西州也强加了这样的暂停。和Delaware River Basin委员会控制水供应到Delaware，New Jersy，纽约和宾夕法尼亚州，推迟了一项投票，该投票将在2011年11月21日最初定于此钻探中暂停其暂停。委员会表示关注最近发现Marcellus Shale的形成，通过这些州以及俄亥俄州和西弗吉尼亚州的36％持续到盆地的36％，据信持有4,359万亿立方英尺的自然天然气，以其形成，“可能有通过减少流动，含水层或两者的流动的水资源对盆地的水资源作用很大影响，这些流域或两者都用于提供巨大的淡水所需的压裂所需的鲜水。

Not everyone accepts a causal link between fracking and air and water contamination. A report published last month by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin declared that fracking “has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination,” and noted that many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are no different from those of other types of oil and gas drilling operations. The report went on to note that these problems reflect easily remediable troubles involving inadequate casing, bad cement or other surface procedures. “Surface spills of fracturing fluids pose greater risks to groundwater sources than from hydraulic fracturing itself,” the report concluded.

与此同时，有些国家欢迎摆幅其经济效益。对于北达科他州，为钻探钻探最佳就业号码在多年的国家所见并威胁到苏环保署，如果它禁止练习。

Reynolds断言，“从压裂”的地质风险是零，“其他问题，如表面流体溢出和不正确的处理废物”。有些网站正在钻井井以处理浪费。

For that reason and because the stakes are so huge, Reynolds doubts that the backlash will lead to a permanent ban on the practice.

“如果在全国范围内禁止压裂，它将停止所有钻井 - 也是如此 - 因为它们也是褶皱，”他也笔记了。纽约的Desantis指出，使用少于80,000加仑水的压裂，而州的环境评审正在进行中。

Sierra Club的Nardone争夺压裂优点的潜在后果超过一个简短的暂停。“问题不仅是地面，还有以下情况，”她断言，注意到处置井“增加了一些压裂的问题。”她认为，在通过注射井将其注入地面进入地面，该行业正在生产远远超出水污染的环境后果，并且该监管机构以及该行业忽略了这些事实。“不仅是这种流量的毒性和他们注射到地面的金额，他们将秘密从公众秘密，”Nardone断言“它也与造成地震的地震有关，而不是已知过去的地震，就像年轻人，俄亥俄州。“

Nardone并不是唯一一个争论联邦铁路局cking can be easily regulated. Paul Bugala, an extractive industries analyst and senior sustainability analyst for Bethesda, Maryland–based Calvert Investments, agrees with Nardone that the emphasis should be “on what comes up rather than what goes down.” Wastewater and flowback, caused by injected water coming back up, are “contaminated with salt, brine and lot of minerals, including radioactive elements,” Bugala says. Water already underground can seep back up over a long period of time, he points out, carrying greenhouse emissions from wells not capped. “How the sites are treated is important,” he says.

尽管如此，雷诺斯预测，一旦法规以不抑制其盈利能力的方式现代化，将是可行的。他指出，非常规技术使得可能“钻入成千上万的地方”。但他争辩，“钻井这种幅度的监管要求尚未到位。”

One issue Reynolds and Bugala agree on is the stakes involved. “We’re entering the end of an era of easy to access resources,” says Bugala, only he thinks investments in both natural gas and alternative energy offer the potential for “significant volatility” as well as growth.

Bugala, whose own firm offers two environmental funds, Calvert Global Water and Calvert Alternative Energy, says investors have to worry about everything from carbon pricing and project delays to an inability to attract trained labor. “They need to ask which companies are going to be the most innovative,” he adds.