How New Jersey’s Linde Has Been Building on the Shale Boom

Linde Group, an international industrial gases firm based in Munich with a U.S. home in New Jersey, is an unusual beneficiary of the U.S. shale gas revolution. The company has developed technology using the industrial gases it can produce in copious quantities, to reduce some of the environmental objections to developing shale gas wells. Linde is reducing the water impacts of hydraulic fracturing of shale gas formations to yield enormous amounts of oil and natural gas.

Linde (pronounced “Lindy” in the U.S. and “Linda” in Europe) uses carbon dioxide and nitrogen—both largely benign, although CO₂ has a bad reputation as a “greenhouse gas”—to fracture shale deposits and liberate oil and gas. A company publication explains how it adds Ni and CO₂ to the water used to fracture shale formations. Linde’s Robin Weir explained that nitrogen or carbon dioxide added to the water pumped into the shale formations reduces the amount of water needed in fracturing jobs and increases gas yields. “The nitrogen is delivered to the site as a liquid. It is then vaporized on site and pumped down as a pure gas. Alternatively, the gas is added to the water-based fluid to create an emulsion or foam. Liquid carbon dioxide can also be pumped below the surface or mixed with an aqueous solution on site to create an emulsion or foam.”

The industry magazine Chemical & Engineering News describes the Linde process as creating foam “with a thickness similar to shaving cream,” which carries proppants that keep the fractured shale debris open and allows the gas to flow out. “According to the company, the method requires less water and fewer chemicals” than convention fracking technologies.

CO₂ and nitrogen have long been used to enhance production from conventional oil and gas wells. But combining them with pressurized water to fracture shale formations is new, and provides benefits over conventional water-based fracking. One of these is a reduction in the amount of waste water produced. The need to treat water from fracking operations, either through existing wastewater facilities or in dedicated treatment plants, is a complaint of environmentalists. While there is little data to indicate environmental contamination, the possibility of damage and the expense of water treatment adds to the cost of well development and operation.

Linde says its fracking technologies have been proved in operations in Canada:

Experts estimate that over 1,400 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves are locked away underground close to Montney, in the western Canadian province of British Columbia. The wells in this area that used nitrogen and carbon dioxide extracted significantly more gas and consumed fewer additives such as sand and chemicals. “The water savings alone make this process an attractive option,” explains one of the co-authors of the study, Lyle H. Burke, from the consultancy RPS Energy in Calgary, Canada. The technology does involve additional costs, but they are more than offset by the increase in yield.

Linde’s origins are German. The company was founded by professor Carl von Linde in 1879. He had developed an innovative refrigeration approach to help a local brewery produce beer year-round, which quickly won markets in what was then the beer-drinking leader of the world. That alone should win Linde a place in the positive history of mankind.

In a recent interview in the Newark Star Ledger, Linde U.S.’s Earl Lawson, vice president of energy solutions, said that the “process of using engineering to help our customers is really the core to our business.” He added that environmental protection is key to the company’s metrics, involving “good standards and practices in place to mitigate” environmental impacts. “You can’t eliminate, but you can absolutely mitigate, the risk of environmental impact.”

That hasn’t mollified fracking opponents in the Garden State. Jim Walsh of Food and Water Watch told the newspaper that “there is no reason we should be doing fracking in New Jersey or anywhere else,” and said that Linde’s use of CO₂ in gas production is a “red herring.”

But it’s also mean green, in terms of dollars, to Linde’s bottom line, and that has been beneficial to the New Jersey economy, where the company’s U.S. headquarters in Union County are located. The company not only supplies carbon dioxide and nitrogen for fracking and conventional enhanced oil recovery, but supplies a range of industrial gases that benefit from the increased U.S industrial production that is a result of low-cost energy supplies from new supplies of natural gas.

Linde produces and sells a range of industrial gases to manufacturers worldwide, as well as agriculture, chemical manufacturing, food and beverages (the fizz in your cola), and steel and metals. All benefit from lower-cost energy resources.

Linde Group in late July reported positive financial results, despite a continued stalled European economy. The company said “revenue rose by 10.5 percent to EUR 8.207 billion, compared with EUR 7.425 billion in the first half of 2012.”  In the U.S., said Linde’s Lawson, “We’ve absolutely seen a resurgence. Honestly, five years ago, we were like everyone else, incredible concerned.” But the shale gas boom, he said, had turned that around, revitalizing the economy and providing new business opportunities for Linde.

—Kennedy Maize is MANAGING POWER’s executive editor.