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Hydraulic fracturing and social media: getting the “fracking” message across
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Hydraulic fracturing and social media: getting the “fracking” message across
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Content
Hydraulic Fracturing and Social Media:
Getting the “Fracking” Message Across
Matheus Fierro Barreiro
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS)
May 2016
Fierro Barreiro 2
Acknowledgments
Sommer Yesenofski for her friendship, for the diligent corrections and, most of all, for the
constructive discussions on this topic, which is certainly not in most 20-somethings’ minds.
Professor Burghardt Tenderich for the patience and guidance while learning about this issue.
And Iolanda Fierro for being my role model, for being there every step of the way and for making
it possible that I be here too.
Fierro Barreiro 3
Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has gained prominence in past decades with an intense
public relations battle between supporters and opponents. While one group highlights benefits, the
other focuses on exposing concerns, but both attempt to drive discussion, shape public opinion and
influence national policy.
Through literature review and in-depth interviews with experts in the fields of engineering
and public relations, this paper seeks to explain the communications strategies and tactics currently
being employed by Energy In Depth and North Texans for Natural Gas, two of the country’s largest
“fracking-related” trade associations, to talk about hydraulic fracturing on digital and social media.
This paper also aims to understand the challenges those institutions face while engaging in online
conversations, map best-in-class practices for the most popular digital and social platforms – i.e.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – and ultimately make recommendations for how oil and gas
trade associations should approach the subject to influence its stakeholders and better engage new
audiences.
In the end, the author suggests eight courses of action he deems most efficient to
accomplish those goals. The list ranges from broad strategies, such as partnerships and individual
frames; to tactical actions, like targeted demographics and the use of platform-specific content.
Fierro Barreiro 4
Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 5
What the frack?............................................................................................................................. 8
Incentives to frack and growth rewards ................................................................................... 22
Growing pains: activists draw attention to environmental and social concerns ................... 34
The semantics of “fracking” ...................................................................................................... 48
The frame to win the debate ...................................................................................................... 51
How two trade associations communicate “fracking” ............................................................. 60
Social media channels best practices ......................................................................................... 68
Conclusion: getting the “fracking” message across ................................................................. 72
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 79
Fierro Barreiro 5
Introduction
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a technique used by oil and natural gas companies
to extract hydrocarbons from deep underground rock formations. The process became popular
among American producers in the mid-1990s and has grown exponentially with technological
improvements that pushed down costs and increased production. Using high-pressure water mixed
with sand and chemicals, these modern day wildcatters break the shale to collect the soil’s mineral
riches.
The shale revolution, as it has come to be known, has generated positive economic impacts,
creating jobs, stimulating local economies and paying royalties to leaseholders and taxes to local
authorities in North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, just to name a few. The increasing oil
and gas output has also fueled national growth, driving down the price of petroleum derivatives,
such as gasoline, and of natural gas, used to warm homes and power industries. Onshore oil and
gas production in the United States also contributed to reduce dependency on Middle Eastern
crude, directly impacting international affairs and policy.
These benefits, however, have not come free of controversy. Critics have pointed to
environmental impacts of shale production, citing drinking water contamination, oil spills and
hydraulic fracturing wastewater disposal as concerns. Activists also raise questions about social
issues, especially when it comes to employee relations, arguing that the industry has grown too
fast and the lack of security has led to multiple deaths in the oil fields.
In 2010, a documentary titled Gasland showed homeowners lighting their tap water on fire.
The claim was that, due to hydraulic fracturing close to residences, methane – an invisible,
odorless, combustible gas – had leaked into water wells and was causing a series of problems in
Fierro Barreiro 6
communities across the country. Scientists and the industry have disputed the statements, and the
film, even though nominated for an Academy Award, has since been discredited.
Nevertheless, as this paper will point out, opposition to hydraulic fracturing has won the
public relations battle to frame one step of the well-completion process as the entirety of the
drilling procedure. In addition, and a bigger concern to the industry’s reputation, activists have
successfully linked linking “fracking” to environmental and social harm.
The industry’s reputation took a blow and is still to fully recover. A silver lining, however,
may come in the form of unfamiliarity: most Americans don’t know about this polarized history
around hydraulic fracturing. Research has shown that more than half of the country’s population
has heard nothing at all or only a little about “fracking” and about 50 percent of who know about
it don’t know or are undecided about whether to support or oppose the practice.
This scenario leaves room for the industry to take the lead in driving the conversation,
especially through mediums that allow for two-way communications, such as social media. With
nearly two-thirds of American adults using social networking sites, there’s an immense
opportunity for oil and gas companies to highlight the benefits of the shale revolution and engage
with supporters and with people who are still forming an opinion about hydraulic fracturing.
The negative stigma, however, may be a limiting factor when attempting to address
Americans directly. That’s why the industry has created education and outreach initiatives, such
as Energy In Depth (EID) and North Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG), that can speak on its behalf.
Using tactics like scientific research and third-party endorsements, these trade associations have
sought to act as “spokespeople” in favor of the shale revolution.
Fierro Barreiro 7
An audit of the online conversation did not show significant EID and NTNG participation.
In fact, activists were more present in driving the Internet chatter than the trade associations,
indicating that the industry is voiceless in the social media public opinion battle.
Therefore, the purpose of this research is to understand how trade associations can optimize
their social media communications – they currently manage profiles in the three most popular
online channels: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – to inform Americans and gain public support
for hydraulic fracturing.
Through content analysis, literature review and in-depth interviews, this paper delineates
the 2015 social media conversation environment around “fracking” and shale development;
presents an appreciation of the semantics of the term, its use and recognition; and describes the
strategies and tactics implemented by the two main trade associations.
Based on those findings, the author proposes an alternative approach for trade associations
to engage with key audiences. The suggested procedures involve drastic changes in relation to
what is currently underway. The revised strategies and tactics, if implemented, could generate
more awareness and enhanced positive recall for the industry.
It is clear to the author, however, that alterations in the way the industry frames hydraulic
fracturing is only a palliative. To effectively reconstruct its reputation, the oil and gas industry
needs to make changes to its overall conservative communications approach, admitting fault when
fault is due and making clear efforts to improve its practices, regardless of costs.
This paper focuses on the industry’s current management approach and attempts to be a
roadmap of how oil and natural gas trade associations can leverage social media to highlight
hydraulic fracturing’s positive impacts, shape public opinion in favor of the practice and ultimately
improve the industry’s reputation.
Fierro Barreiro 8
What the frack?
If you’re reading this in 2016, there’s a high probability that at any given moment 1.7
million wells are pumping oil and natural gas from American soil. To be more specific, as of mid-
2015, 1,666,715 active wells operated in the United States, according to a report by the
FracTracker Alliance, a non-profit that follows the impacts of the oil and gas industry. The mineral
wealth reaches at least 35 of the 50 states and more than 53 percent of American counties.
1
Texas,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia alone accounted for 744,152 wells, approximately 45
percent of all the extraction sites in the country.
Excluding the Gulf of Mexico and its offshore production, which represents a significant
part of Texan extraction, the land-locked reality of the four states represents a shift in how oil and
natural gas end up from thousands of feet below the ground to fueling our cars, heating our homes
and powering our factories. The traditional image of a platform in the middle of the ocean is
gradually being substituted by derricks along our highways and adjacent to our neighborhoods, as
industrialization encroaches ever closer onto urban areas.
The change in scenery is due to hydraulic fracturing, a technique that makes it possible for
companies to recover oil and natural gas from hard, impermeable rocks deep underground. Over
the last several decades, improvements in technology have made the process considerably cheaper,
driving an energy boom with political, economic and environmental consequences.
“Fracking,” as the technique has been popularly called, has been a part of the energy
industry for the better half of its history. “There is a popular notion, particularly among opponents,
that fracking is a new and untested technology. There’s a kernel of truth to it. Modern shale
1
Matt Kelso. “1.7 Million Wells in the U.S. – A 2015 Update.” FracTracker Alliance. Accessed January 7, 2016,
http://www.fractracker.org/2015/08/1-7-million-wells/.
Fierro Barreiro 9
fracking began in 1998 (…). But researchers in oil companies were working on ‘hydrafracs’ as far
back as World War II – and they were building on earlier efforts.”
2
The research certainly paid off, and as production trails a path of steady incline, curiosity
about effects and impacts also grow. Russell Gold and Tom McGinty found that at least 15.3
million Americans live within a mile of an onshore well drilled in the last fifteen years. “That is
more people than live in Michigan or New York City,” concluded the Wall Street Journal
reporters.
3
As the operations start to influence more and more people’s lives, media attention and
public scrutiny also become more intense. The subject has dominated local and energy news for
quite some time, helping form public opinion and progressively making its way into daily
discussions.
The interest is only natural since the United States was the first country to establish a
petroleum industry soon after Edwin Drake struck liquid gold in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859.
For more than a century, the U.S. was the world’s energy giant. The legal and economic
environments were a serious boost, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the mineral
reserves, which are explained by geology.
The rock layers below our feet are stacked on top of each other much like pancakes. The
Earth’s surface is the result of millions of years of tectonic movement, volcanic eruptions and
mountainous erosion. As those processes happened, the ground morphed to become something
like a layer cake. It’s from those layers of fossil fuel frosting that the oil and natural gas companies
withdraw the resources that make the global economy function. When it comes to American
2
Russell Gold, The Boom – How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World (New
York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2015), 64.
3
“Energy Boom Puts Wells in America’s Backyards,” The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2013. Accessed
December 26, 2015, http://on.wsj.com/1Znjk6h.
Fierro Barreiro 10
hydraulic fracturing, however, it’s shale, a specific type of formation sometimes as far as ten
thousand feet below ground, that engineers and geologists focus on.
“Sixty million years ago, the broad collision of plates created the Rocky Mountains in the
west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. In between was an enormous, shallow ocean
called the mid-Cretaceous inland sea. It covered the area we now call the Great Plains, Texas, and
even reached up into what became Pennsylvania,” defines Gold. “Zooplankton and other small
aquatic organisms lived in that sea, fed by the sun and nutrient-rich waters. When they died, they
settled on the seabed. In this vast marine environment, over millennia, these dead creatures created
a thick layer of organic material. Eventually rocks buried this sediment, an overburden that created
pressure and generated heat. The organisms slowly cooked, broke down, and turned into natural
gas and oil.”
4
The mid-Cretaceous inland sea left Americans a rich energy inheritance. The specificities
of the geological formations evolved to represent several of the world’s largest oil and natural gas
producing fields in a series of states. As Figure 1 shows, areas such as New York, Pennsylvania,
West Virginia and Ohio, on top of the Marcellus and Utica formations; Texas, above the Eagle
Ford and sharing the Permian and the Haynesville, which also encompass parts of New Mexico
and Louisiana, respectively; Colorado and Wyoming, with the Niobrara formation below; and
Montana and North Dakota, atop the Bakken; have extreme resource potential. According to the
Energy Information Administration, the agency responsible for collecting and disseminating data
about the industry, these seven regions accounted for 92 percent of domestic oil and natural gas
production growth between the years of 2011 and 2014, the most recent statistics available.
4
Gold, 14.
Fierro Barreiro 11
Figure 1 – The seven most relevant shale formations in the United States according to the EIA
Source: U.S Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
Reaching that fossil fuel content stored in the shale formations, however, isn’t easy. Unlike
conventional reservoirs, which resemble bursting a balloon filled using water with a toothpick and
letting the pressure difference push out the oil and natural gas, hydraulic fracturing is done in a
structure harder and less permeable than a sidewalk.
Over the centuries, as the Earth’s heat cooked the organic material that eventually became
oil and natural gas, it also pushed it upward, much like fat rising to the top of the broth. These
small particles flowed through permeable rock until it hit a “ceiling.” As the “cooking” continued,
more and more particles rose and accumulated to form immense pools of fossil fuels. “So far the
world has focused on reservoir rock, the conventional reservoirs. These rocks have oil, but it didn't
originate there,” explains Dr. Iraj Ershaghi, director of Petroleum Engineering at USC Viterbi
5
.
“Now we're going after the source rock, the rocks where oil was formed. We didn't pay much
5
Iraj Ershaghi, interviewed by the author, November 10, 2015.
Bakken
Marcellus
Utica
Niobrara
Permian
Haynesville
Fierro Barreiro 12
attention to these formations before because they're so tight that we didn't think we could get
anything from there. Lately, however, we've come up with technology to break them and produce
oil and gas.”
The technology to which Dr. Ershaghi refers is hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The
process happens after the drilling of the well is complete. To improve efficiency – allowing the
recovery of more oil and natural gas from fewer holes – and consequently reduce environmental
impacts,
6
the companies inject a high-pressured concoction of water, sand and chemicals into the
wellbore. Because water doesn’t compress, when it’s forced against the tight rock it creates tiny
fractures in the shale formation, which the grains of sand help keep open, making room for the
hydrocarbons to flow back to the surface after the water is removed. “Each crack exposes the shale
to what amounts to a tiny brook that leads to a small stream and so forth until it reaches a river
(the well itself) that connects the shale to the surface.”
7
Because of the many stages and the multiple steps needed to ensure the safety of employees
and to minimize environmental impacts, drilling can take up to several months. The hydraulic
fracturing process, however, is limited to a couple of days and may guarantee energy production
for up to four decades, according to industry sources.
8
Nevertheless, to reach this level of sophistication, it took oil and natural gas companies
almost a century. One of the industry’s pioneers, Edward A. L. Roberts, died extremely rich. “His
wealth came from a patent for a bomb, of sorts, that exploded in the bottom of oil wells. He is
fracking’s father.”
9
6
“Well Integrity and Groundwater Protection – ConocoPhillips,” ConocoPhillips YouTube channel,
https://youtu.be/nFleLTjoyX4.
7
Gold, 29.
8
“Hydraulic Fracturing,” Energy from Shale YouTube channel, https://youtu.be/YemKzEPugpk.
9
Gold, 63.
Fierro Barreiro 13
Not long after Edwin Drake’s discovery in Pennsylvania, Roberts filed a patent application
for his torpedo in the 1860s. His mechanism was lowered into the well to a certain depth and then
the nitroglycerine capsule would direct the explosion sideways, “fracturing” the oil strata and
allowing for improved production.
His fame came after he was able to unclog a poor well and considerably increase the
amount of oil collected. “‘The explosion caused the oil and water to shoot out of the well some
thirty feet into the air, and made the ground groan like a great monster in the agonies of death,’
noted a contemporary account.”
10
Although the new technique proved itself effective, the cost was prohibitive to many small-
production wildcatters. The financial limitations not only incentivized a black market for the
torpedoes, but also helped propel many entrepreneurs to work on innovations. The idea of stirring
the ground and breaking the rock to free the hydrocarbons was the main line of attack and some
explorers started attempting an approach they called “river fracks.” Using sand and water from
local streams, they’d inject the material down the hole under extremely high pressure in an attempt
to improve production. As the wells got deeper in search for more oil and natural gas, however,
this method started becoming less successful. The shale rock the companies stumbled upon was
thicker and less permeable than what they were used to.
Permeability is a measure used by earth scientists to quantify the porosity of materials,
especially rocks. It’s related to the shape of the pores and to how much fluid is able to pass through.
The unit of permeability is a darcy, named after French engineer Henry Darcy, who created the
system. Values of permeability range from as high as 100,000 darcys for gravel, which is extremely
10
Gold, 67.
Fierro Barreiro 14
permeable, for example, to less than 0.01 microdarcy for granite. Sand has a permeability of
roughly 1 darcy.
11
The geologists and petroleum engineers had met their match in shale. The source rock was
extremely difficult to crack. “The East Texas sandstones were 0.0001 darcy, or 50,000 times less
permeable than sand” and the Barnett Shale, in Texas, where they were tackling these deeper, more
dense rocks, “is one thousand times less permeable than the sandstones. It is about 100 nanodarcys,
or 0.0000001 darcy.”
12
As a matter of comparison, “if the size of the typical shale pore was a
marble, sandstone’s pores were the size of a lecture hall.”
13
Nonetheless, a handful of entrepreneurs rose to the task. They were convinced it was
possible to extract the riches from the shale. Men like George Mitchell, who steered his company
– Mitchell Energy – from a small time player to become one of the most innovative independent
operators in the industry. The Texan had the vision to apply a new drilling technique – very similar
to the river fracks – that he had read about in academic literature. The authors of the paper claimed
that this approach helped loosen compact rocks, better preparing them to produce energy.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fraccing” – as it was called in scientific journals at the time – “entailed
fracturing the rocks, or breaking them up, by pummeling them with various liquids to free up the
gas.”
14
With incentives from the local and the federal government, along with support from the
communities, Mitchell’s team tried different concoctions in various attempts to break the shale.
The most common tactic was using a slushy gel, which was expensive and difficult to acquire in
11
Peter C. Lichtner, Carl I. Steefel, and Eric H. Oelkers, Reactive Transport in Porous Media (Mineralogical Society of
America, 1996), 5.
12
Gold, 128.
13
Gold, 117.
14
Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers – The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters (New York:
Penguin, 2014), 26.
Fierro Barreiro 15
the tiny, rural towns of Texas. The unconventional reservoirs, even though extremely rich in
hydrocarbons, were testing the limits of the time’s technology.
That’s when Nick Steinsberger, one of Mitchell’s engineers, convinced his boss to attempt
an outrageous idea. He suggested that, instead of using the gel-like substances, they try water. His
ambitious plan involved using a massive amount of water – four or five times as much as the
typical slug of gel. The physical principle was the same: sent down the well under extremely high
pressure the water would work its way through the shale’s cracks just like the gel.
Water was not only cheaper and easily accessible, but it had an added bonus: “Water could
be purchased from local cities for a fraction of the cost of gels. He [Steinsberger] wasn’t sure if
the water would work, but since it cost so much less to frack a well with water, he could improve
the economics of the well if it was even close to producing as much gas as a well fracked with gel.
What’s more, if it didn’t work, the water wouldn’t clog up the shale.”
15
His decision to cut down on the gels and increase the share of water to ninety nine percent
of the fracturing mix proved and enormous financial and engineering success. “Their slick-water
concoction wasn’t just cheaper than the chemical-and-gel fluid they had been using. It somehow
was more effective as well.”
16
The remaining one percent of the fluid was composed of propants, sandy materials that act
as pillars in a coal mine, holding the shale fractures open; gelling agents, like guar gum, a natural
substance that prevents the sand from accumulating at the bottom of mixture and clogging the
well; surfactants, which help reduce friction during the high-pressure injections; and biocides, to
kill bacteria that may cause corrosion and formation damage.
17
15
Gold, 126.
16
Zuckerman, 93.
17
Kate Glass. “Shale Gas and Oil Terminology Explained: Technology, Inputs & Operations.” Environmental and
Energy Study Institute. Accessed December 28, 2015, http://www.eesi.org/files/fracking_technology_120111.pdf.
Fierro Barreiro 16
Steinsberger’s first successful hydraulic fracturing job was well shy of the operations that
are conducted in modern onshore oil and natural gas fields. Today’s jobs consume approximately
five times as much water as the Mitchell Energy team used. The original process spent 1.2 million
gallons of water, enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. “There are other critical
differences. Steinsberger’s well went straight down. Most modern shale wells, like those in North
Dakota, are ‘horizontal.’ They head straight down and then turn until they run parallel to the
surface, traversing through the shale formation for up to two miles.”
18
Along with George Mitchell and Nick Steinsberger’s slick-water contribution to the
development of oil and natural gas shale extraction, two other innovations, in nearly simultaneous
succession, were also fundamental in driving the shale revolution in the United States: horizontal
drilling and multistage “fracking.”
As Gregory Zuckerman explains, “part of the problem with traditional vertical drilling is
that among the numerous sedimentary layers under the ground brimming with oil and gas are those,
like shale, that are very long and very narrow. They go on for miles and miles, but their ‘payzones,’
or the section with enough oil and gas to make it worthwhile to drill, are relatively thin. Traditional
vertical drilling means penetrating only small parts of these wide horizontal energy deposits.”
19
Horizontal drilling had nothing to do with hydraulic fracturing at first. The initial idea was
just to better target the formations below the surface and increase well exposure, maximizing
production and consequently reducing costs. The technique was extremely expensive and a
horizontal well could cost as much as six times the amount of a vertical well. The extra amount of
oil and natural gas that drilling parallel to the surface managed to drive out of the rock formations,
however, tended to justify the cost.
18
Gold, 122.
19
Zuckerman, 55.
Fierro Barreiro 17
“A vertical well is like an elevator that picks up passengers at every floor. The Barnett
[shale formation] is typically 350 feet thick, or the size of a thirty-five-story building,” describes
Russell Gold. “Horizontal wells would traverse through the shale, running a couple thousand feet.
This elevator, laid on its side, would be longer than the world’s largest skyscraper.”
20
“Horizontal wells, in 2002, were fairly unusual. Only one of every fourteen wells drilled
in the United States and Canada was horizontal. A decade later, six of every ten wells were
horizontal.”
21
As horizontal drilling became mainstream and efficiency grew, companies were able to
reduce prices. But engineers and executives still weren’t satisfied. The common practice was to
pump frack fluid into the well and hope it would crack the rock. “It was like bringing a chainsaw
into a surgical suite. The technique was known in North Dakota oil circles as a ‘Hail Mary
frack.’”
22
Seeking alternatives to what is usually a desperate play, some firms started seeing positive
results when they fracked specific parts of the well in different phases. “The idea was to isolate a
section of the horizontal wellbore, frack it, and get oil flowing. After a dozen or more ‘stages,’ the
fracking would be complete. By segmenting the well and fracking it in stages with concentrated
fluid, drillers were getting impressive amounts of oil from dense rock that had proven especially
stubborn, like the Bakken shale.”
23
20
Gold, 144.
21
Gold, 145.
22
Gold, 54.
23
Zuckerman, 252.
Fierro Barreiro 18
“The Olson [horizontal, multistage] well was easily twice as expensive as the type of Hail
Mary wells Brigham [Resources] had tried a few years earlier. But the well produced nearly five
times more oil.”
24
What started as an attempt to raise production gradually evolved into the standard for the
industry. Hydraulic fracturing the horizontal wells with slick-water in multiple stages became the
norm if a company wanted to stake a claim in the shale revolution (Figure 2). Never mind just
leaving its mark in the process, if the firm wanted to be competitive and generate positive returns
for its shareholders, there was no other option.
While the Energy Information Administration (EIA) didn't even include shale gas in its
2009 annual production outlook, three years later the agency reported that more than a quarter of
American natural gas came from shale formations. The U.S. is already the world’s largest producer
of natural gas, and that figure is expected to increase. The EIA estimates that, by 2035, natural gas
coming from source rock is bound to represent 50 percent of the country’s production.
As the global oil companies like Chevron, Exxon and Shell focused on finding and
extracting oil and natural gas from conventional reservoirs abroad, independent operators like
George Mitchell led the way on hydraulic fracturing. “The majors thought it was just a local
phenomenon. They opted to focus their operation on larger scales enterprises, these were small
potatoes for them,” says Dr. Iraj Ershaghi.
5
Nonetheless, the local innovators stayed on track. Trial and error, exchange of information
in industry conferences, small, dedicated research and development teams all helped strengthen
the process. The companies were able to optimize not only hydraulic fracturing, making it faster
and cleaner, but also the entire the drilling process. By 2010, another important player in the
24
Gold, 57.
Fierro Barreiro 19
industry, Continental Resources, “had figured out how to drill four wells from a single drilling
‘pad,’ (…) another technological innovation that pushed crude production higher.”
25
Figure 2 - Source: CFR Backgrounders - Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)
The improvements can be seen in numbers from the EIA (Figure 3). They show the
evolution both in drilling technology, as rigs are able to drill more accurately and better target the
horizontal wells. The data also points to advances in production efficiency, proven by the
25
Zuckerman, 329.
Fierro Barreiro 20
exponential growth in the quantity withdrawn from each well. The more oil and natural gas the
companies got from each well, the less they needed to drill new holes.
Figure 3 – The graph on the left shows the number of wells drilled per rig per month. On the right, the brown line
represents the oil production in barrels per day and, in blue, the thousands of cubic feet of gas extracted each day.
The rise in production, even though the numbers of wells drilled remained constant indicates improved efficiency in
the process, implying a reduction in environmental and social impacts.
Source: U.S Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
Another clear positive externality as the drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes mature
is the lessened environmental impact. Instead of peppering the landscape with multiple wells to
inefficiently extract as much fossil fuel as possible from nearby locations, the companies could
now drill in different directions from the same spot, reaching the minerals with pinpoint accuracy
and cracking the shale with extreme proficiency. All this pointed to a reduction in risks and in the
overall environmental footprint.
As the United States drives down a path in which nearly every onshore well in the country
is hydraulically fracked, whether due to geological requirements or a desire for increased
productivity, it’s undeniable: “This revolution is transforming the United States. To a remarkable
Fierro Barreiro 21
extent, this once-obscure oil-field technique defines the nation’s economic and environmental
future.”
26
26
Gold, 5.
Fierro Barreiro 22
Incentives to frack and growth rewards
Between 2010 and 2014, the United States increased its crude oil production by almost 50
percent. In April of 2014, the country was generating 8.4 million barrels of oil per day. This major
increase is due to exponential growth in operations in Texas and North Dakota (Figure 4). Meg
Coleman and Mike Ford, analysts with the Energy Information Administration, point out in a
report that, “Texas production topped three million barrels per day for the first time since the late
1970s, more than doubling production in the past three years [2011 to 2014]. North Dakota
production broke one million barrels per day for the first time in history, nearly tripling its
production over the same period.”
27
Figure 4 – Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly
27
Meg Coleman and Mike Ford. "North Dakota and Texas now provide nearly half of U.S. crude oil production."
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Accessed December 22, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1xavTWe.
Fierro Barreiro 23
Production in Texas and North Dakota grew at average annual rates of 28 percent and 37
percent, respectively. The numbers are a considerable contrast to the national average growth,
excluding those two states, a meager 2 percent. With the rise in production in those two states, the
share of oil coming from the Gulf of Mexico suffered a steep decline, falling from 27 percent to
17 percent of the country’s total production. It is astounding to think that oil extracted from shale
and other tight rock formations didn’t even appear in the EIA’s annual energy outlook in 1999.
Gains in production, according to the analysts, are credited to exploration in counties that
contain unconventional tight oil and shale reservoirs, specifically the Permian Basin, the Eagle
Ford Shale and the Bakken formation (Figure 5).
Figure 5 – Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
The oil boom has had enormous impact on Texas’ and North Dakota’s economies.
Production in the northern state is so economically key that it drove oil economist Phil Verleger
to comment that North Dakota “‘should start considering applying for membership in OPEC
Fierro Barreiro 24
[Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries].’ At the time of the remark, the Roughrider
State produced more than OPEC member Ecuador. It passed another member, Qatar, in the
summer of 2013.”
28
Until oil and natural gas companies turned their attention to the Bakken, North Dakota had
been struggling economically. Gregory Zuckerman notes that it had been the only state in the
country to see its population shrink since the end of the Great Depression. “At one point, state
leaders considered dropping the ‘North’ from the name and simply calling it ‘Dakota,’ hoping it
might make the state seem a tad warmer and more attractive.”
29
With the growth in shale exploration, the economic environment changed for the better.
The progress in oil production required labor and the newcomer companies hired locally. In mid-
2012, when the United States’ unemployment rate was hovering around 8 percent, according to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
30
North Dakota’s was approximately 3 percent, and it was under 1
percent in Williston, where the Bakken formation is located. Similar trends have been seen in
Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as in Ohio, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania,
all sitting atop relevant shale formations. In the Keystone State, for example, studies point to each
new well creating, on average, 14 direct jobs between 2010 and 2012.
31
Oil production has been a
financial shot in the arm for these regions.
Another positive economic impact is seen in Texas, where a study by the group North
Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG), a grassroots association with ties to the industry, concluded that
the oil and natural gas industry contributes over $4 billion to the state’s education system every
28
Gold, 43.
29
Zuckerman, 334.
30
"Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey," Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed January 8,
2016. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000.
31
David Wheeler et al., "Hydraulic fracturing - Integrating public participation with an independent review of the
risks and benefits," Energy Policy 85 (October 2015): 303.
Fierro Barreiro 25
year.
32
That’s roughly 6.5 percent of the public education system’s annual budget, a considerable
amount in a state that is still recovering from cuts made in 2011.
33
The NTNG report shows that “some [Texas] regions have struggled for years to attract new
investment. It is in some of these areas where oil and natural gas development has provided a
lifeline to the local economy, helping not only to provide jobs for working families, but also critical
sources of revenue for schools that may not otherwise be available.”
North Texans for Natural Gas cites the Texas Oil and Gas Association president, Todd
Staples, to provide another impacting number: more than 2.2 million people in the state have jobs
somehow connected to fossil fuel extraction. According to the association, $15 billion in tax and
royalty revenues were paid to state and local governments in 2014, indirectly fueling the economy.
Individuals have also benefitted from the shale boom. “So many farmers, ranchers, and
homeowners became wealthy leasing drilling rights to their properties that a nickname was coined
for them: ‘shale-ionaires.’ The industry said it paid out $6 billion from 2008 to 2010 just in
Pennsylvania, the heart of the Marcellus Shale formation.”
34
Zuckerman explains that the most popular lease terms oil and natural gas companies sign
with mineral rights owners require the drillers to dig “wells within three to five years, while also
paying potential royalties to landowners, or face the loss of the leases, even after sometimes paying
leaseholders bonuses of up to $20,000 per acre as part of the leasing transaction. Once production
began, the landowners also received a royalty on the producing wells that typically amounted to
15 to 20 percent of the wells’ revenues.”
35
32
“Fracking Funds Texas Schools,” A North Texans for Natural Gas Special Report, accessed December 28, 2015,
http://www.northtexansfornaturalgas.com/education_report
33
“Public Education Funding in Texas,” Financial Allocation Study for Texas, accessed March 12, 2016,
http://fastexas.org/about/funding.php.
34
Zuckerman, 322.
35
Zuckerman, 340.
Fierro Barreiro 26
These individual examples are clear representations of oil exploration as a positive
economic tidal wave for the nation. According to a National Bureau of Economic Research study
conducted in more than 3,000 counties, those situated within 100 miles of new production received
$243,000 in wages, garnered $117,000 in royalties and created 2.49 jobs for every $1 million of
extracted oil and natural gas. This boom totaled 725,000 added jobs throughout the United States
between 2005 and 2012, softening the impact of the financial crisis.
36
A similar review conducted by the consultancy IHS established that, in 2012 alone, the
shale energy boom supported 2.1 million jobs, contributing almost $75 billion in federal and state
revenues, incrementing the gross domestic product by $283 billion and lifting household income
by more than $1,200. “The unconventional oil and gas revolution is not only an energy story, it is
also a very big economic story. The growth of long-term, low-cost energy supplies is benefiting
households and helping revitalize U.S. manufacturing, creating a competitive advantage for U.S.
industry and for the United States itself,” concluded Daniel Yergin, the firm’s vice chairman.
37
American manufacturers are expected to raise industrial production by 3.5 percent by the
end of the decade as a result of lower fuel prices. Companies relying on natural gas to manufacture
their products, like plastics and fertilizers, are also benefitting from reduced costs, making their
products cheaper and more competitive.
38
Cheaper gas, and in many sectors cheaper power, gives
U.S. companies a comparative advantage in the global marketplace.
The increase in oil and natural gas production has not only created jobs and distributed
wealth, but has also increased the population’s spending power. Because of higher production and
36
Richard Valdmanis. "U.S. fracking boom added 725,000 jobs - study." Reuters. Accessed November 22, 2015,
http://reut.rs/1PdW9pd.
37
Jim Efstathiou Jr. "Fracking Boom Seen Raising Household Incomes by $1,200." Bloomberg Business. Accessed
December 27, 2015, http://bloom.bg/1TYdlDs.
38
Zuckerman, 375.
Fierro Barreiro 27
cheaper energy prices, consumers and companies are paying less to heat and cool their homes and
businesses. Gasoline prices have slumped at the pump, freeing disposable income that would
otherwise have been spent filling the tank.
Summarizing the economic benefits, Alan Krupnick, senior fellow at a think tank devoted
exclusively to natural resource and environmental issues called Resources for the Future, believes
that “all of this is good news for the U.S. economy, as it is fueling a renaissance in some
manufacturing sectors, creating local boom towns, holding down electricity price increases as
cheap coal is being phased out and lowering energy bills for gas heating.”
39
The positive impacts of the shale revolution, however, are not limited to monetary and
financial aspects. The relationship between political-economic outcomes and energy are important
factors to be considered when analyzing the relevance of the phenomenon. Fossil fuel dependence
raises not only economic fears, but political and national security concerns that producing
countries will distort markets for ulterior reasons.
The rise in American oil and natural gas extraction led the country to become the world’s
top producer of oil liquids and of natural gas. Once the biggest importer of refined oil derivatives,
the U.S. is now their major exporter.
40
This shift in production helped reduce imports and, in 2014,
petroleum brought from overseas had fallen nearly 40 percent compared to 2006 levels. The rise
in domestic production and decline of international dependence was celebrated in a 2010 White
39
Alan J. Krupnick, "Hydraulic Fracturing for Shale Gas: Economic Rewards and Risks," in Environmental and Health
Issues of Unconventional Oil and Gas, ed. Debra Kaden and Tracie Rose (Waltham, MA: Elsevier, 2015), 29.
40
Antoine Halff. "OPEC's policy challenge in the age of shale oil." Center on Global Energy Policy. Accessed January
13, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Zy9fZE.
Fierro Barreiro 28
House fact sheet.
41
“These changes hold broad implications for global markets and international
relations.”
42
Figure 6 shows American petroleum and other liquid fuels supply by source from 1970 to
estimated origin and consumption amounts in 2040. With tight oil production growing steadily
and offsetting the fall in extraction from traditional sources of crude, the reduction in imports is
visually impactful.
Figure 6 – The graph shows how imports have lost share in the U.S.’s energy matrix as tight (or shale) oil gains
importance
Source: CFR Backgrounders - Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)
41
"Expanding Safe and Responsible Oil Production While Investing in the Future," The White House, accessed
January 10, 2016, http://1.usa.gov/1KfZlPQ.
42
James McBride. "Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)." Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed January 8, 2016,
http://on.cfr.org/1NLffou.
Fierro Barreiro 29
As the United States breaks a paradigm that was thought to be the norm since the 1970s oil
crisis (when national production started declining and imports played an increasingly important
role in energy supply), the country reaps political and diplomatic benefits. “The possible economic
costs of oil dependence are three fold: (1) national wealth is transferred to producing states, (2)
potential GDP is lowered, and (3) other factors of production are temporarily underemployed.
Beyond economics, dependence on external oil suppliers can restrain a country’s foreign policy
and fund both military build-up and weapons of mass destruction acquisition by unfriendly
regimes.”
43
In other words, the shale revolution may have positively interfered with America’s interests
in the Middle East. As internal production grew, less capital was sent out of the country for the
acquisition of gas and oil and its derivatives. The U.S. has consequently reduced its military
presence in the region – notably in Iraq and Afghanistan – as the need for stability to guarantee the
steady flow of energy has faded, and as local players have become less influential in the world
stage due falling oil prices. The rise in non-conventional oil production in the U.S. may also have
affected the duration of the 2010 Iran embargo, which forced the Persian government to sign a
nuclear agreement after being weakened from the lack of demand for its petroleum.
The economic and political advancements would not have been possible without a positive
legal environment. “Eager for the benefits of energy production, politicians and judges created
favorable conditions for the United States to become a giant oil and gas producer in the twentieth
century.”
44
43
Scott R. Littlefield, "Security, independence, and sustainability: Imprecise language and the manipulation of
energy policy in the United States," Energy Policy 52 (January 2013): 781.
44
Gold, 23.
Fierro Barreiro 30
The U.S. has a peculiar system that simplifies negotiations with drillers and the expansion
of production. Unlike other models, where countries usually control exploration rights, American
homeowners own the land – and riches – under their property in the form of mineral rights. As a
result, companies and their representatives can negotiate directly with them, bypassing government
bureaucracy and red tape.
Another legal maneuver that tends to work in favor of oil and natural gas development is
the pooling of leases. In states such as Oklahoma, a landowner is legally obligated to charter his
land to those wishing to extract fossil fuels or drill the acreage himself. “To this day, a landowner
can’t hold up drilling simply by refusing to lease his land. It’s a common measure shared by many
states and aimed at preventing recalcitrant landowners from standing in the way of energy
production.”
45
Adding to local and state legislative incentives, the federal government also played an
important role in boosting unconventional oil and natural gas extraction. Engineers from the
research arm of the Department of Energy were the first to effectively drill horizontally. Their
technique was so successful that they patented it and later provided funding for a number of
experimental horizontal gas wells, disseminating the practice and helping perfect the method in
partnerships with the private sector.
The Department of Energy, around the same time, also enacted a program to finance
expensive hydraulic fracturing jobs. George Mitchell’s Mitchell Energy, for example, benefitted
from the policy to reduce risks, tapping the federal budget to split costs and counting on the
government to chip in up to $1 million per well.
45
Zuckerman, 120.
Fierro Barreiro 31
As if that weren’t enough, Capitol Hill approved, in 1980, another incentive called the Non-
conventional Fuels Tax Credit, or Section 29. “The measure, enacted amid concerns about
American dependence on imported oil, was aimed at spurring expensive production from shale
and other challenging rock, as well as from coalbeds.”
46
Energy independence was an especially delicate topic in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the
Cold War environment, the United States would be vulnerable if it were too reliant on any one
specific source for its fuel. This context, along with the short supply of natural gas, greatly
influenced Congress in passing a law in 1978 that essentially barred the construction of gas-fired
power plants. By the time the rule was repealed, nine years later, the country’s energy grid could
rely on 81 gigawatts’ worth of new power plants that burned dirty, reliable chunks of fossilized
carbon – about a quarter of all coal plants that were still in use more than thirty years later.
47
“Up until the mid-2000s about half the electricity in the U.S. was produced by burning
coal, while 20 percent or less came from gas.”
48
With the end of the Cold War and a push from the
public, however, there was significant pressure to shift to natural gas. The new mentality boosted
demand and became a tool in the industry’s messaging arsenal to expand production and keep
investing in shale exploration. One of the main claims in favor of natural gas is that, to achieve the
same amount of energy, burning coal generates 42 percent more carbon dioxide than crude oil,
which, in turn, spawns 18 percent more greenhouse gases than the cleaner natural gas option.
49
Nowadays coal has fallen to represent only 30 percent of the nation’s electric source, down
from 44 percent in 2010. Coal has given way to gas, which now answers for 31 percent, up
46
Zuckerman, 128.
47
Gold, 83.
48
Marie Cusick. "How Fracking is Fueling a Power Shift From Coal to Gas." NPR. Accessed December 28, 2015,
http://n.pr/1K8crB9.
49
Gold, 34.
Fierro Barreiro 32
considerably from its 22 percent six years ago, according to the Energy Information
Administration.
50
Specialists credit the increasing use of natural gas to generate electricity and to
heat buildings as the main reason the United States has been able to radically decrease its carbon
output. The country was the only developed nation not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – a United
Nations effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, it’s one of the few that are on track to
meet the targets set in 1997.
Natural gas has been deemed the ideal transition fuel into the new economy, which will be
powered by renewables. An analyst at Citigroup has gone as far as to say that gas and renewables
form a “symbiotic relationship.” In a long report, the energy specialist told clients that more
renewables will drive demand for more gas-powered plants because of their capability to turn on
and off quickly.
51
This characteristic is important to keep the system balanced when clouds block
solar panels or wind currents aren’t strong enough to power turbines.
The flexibility that comes from gas-powered plants to feed the energy grid in a renewable
scenario is also a key characteristic of the entrepreneurial culture that drove the shale revolution.
The supportive background of a permissive legal system, coupled with government incentives and
nourished by cheap financing gave ample incentives for the years of trial and error necessary for
the tight rock breakthroughs.
As Antoine Halff, director of the Global Oil Markets Research Program at Columbia
University, explains, shale oil companies – and their executives – are the opposite of the traditional
drilling multinationals. He describes the former as “small, newly-minted, nimble, innovative,
highly leveraged, constantly adapting to changes in market conditions. Compared to conventional
50
Charlotte Cox and Peter Marrin. “Total US gas-fired generation overtakes coal burn for 1
st
time ever.” SNL.
Accessed January 13, 2016, https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-33130767-13612.
51
Gold, 266.
Fierro Barreiro 33
oil, shale oil has low initial capital requirements (fixed costs) but high ongoing funding needs
(variable costs), short lead times, short payback times, and steep decline rates. It is much more
price responsive than conventional oil.”
52
With so many elements working in favor of the oil and gas industry and pushing it forward,
the United States created the perfect storm. It was the ideal environment for hydraulic fracturing
to take root and flourish.
52
Halff, 2.
Fierro Barreiro 34
Growing pains: activists draw attention to environmental and social concerns
Even though the stars seemed aligned to boost shale production, no rapid growth is without
its growing pains. Starting mostly with the 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland, written
and directed by activist Josh Fox, the industry was put under intense scrutiny. The lack of academic
research about its long-term consequences, especially the environmental impacts of onshore
drilling, led to fear and doubt about the technique. “The extent of most risks from shale
development is unknown because most studies don’t track the long-term, cumulative effect of this
drilling.”
53
Hydraulic fracturing’s externalities have driven public discussion and, in some extreme
cases, given way to bans, such as the one Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration announced
in New York State in 2014. Citing concerns over possible health risks, most prominently water
contamination and air pollution, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, said there
wasn’t enough scientific evidence to attest to the safety of “fracking.”
The oil and natural gas industry’s reluctance to face criticism with open and transparent
communication has also fueled distrust. Producers blame economic competition to keep hydraulic
fracturing chemical formulas a secret, they constantly limit themselves to positive economic
impacts as a tactic to counter environmental concerns, and they generally resort to trade
associations as the face of their industry to address public reproach.
While the oil and gas companies remain silent in response to multiple pushes from different
activist groups, the opposition’s support from the media and the successful use of digital and social
communication channels have allowed them to more easily earn the public’s trust. Activists have
also successfully linked “fracking” to somber incidents, portraying a specific phase of the drilling
53
Zuckerman, 379.
Fierro Barreiro 35
practice with a negative frame and making it more palatable to criticism. With incomplete research
and a lack of reassurance by oil and gas companies, it’s easy to understand why communities and
lawmakers have been skeptical about hydraulic fracturing.
The rapid pace with which the practice became mainstream is another contributing factor
to suspicion. “People in the oil and gas industry use a metaphor to describe what happened in the
mid-2000s. The treadmill, they say, was turned up. What had been a casual pace on the machine –
raising money, drilling wells, selling energy – became faster and faster until it was a sprint.”
54
The
hurried expansion led to some carelessness and mistakes that rightfully scared communities.
Until the later years of the 2000s, drilling and hydraulic fracturing hadn’t attracted much
controversy. A majority of the operations was limited to less populated areas of the country or to
states like Texas, with a long history of supporting the energy business, and there were few
reported incidents. As production started spreading to the more densely populated East Coast,
some locals became wary of the activity, especially those who had moved to the rural areas to get
away from the noise and pollution of the big cities.
Pennsylvania is a good example to illustrate the consequences of the rapid drilling
expansion atop the Marcellus Shale. Russell Gold revealed that, by 2010, there were 3,316 permit
requests to extract natural gas from the formation. The number represented a proposed increase of
4,500 percent in comparison with the 71 requests submitted just three years earlier.
Even though new equipment was built and moved into the region, it wasn’t enough to keep
up with demand. Tools and labor were in short supply. “Any rig that could be repurposed to drill
a mile down was used, even though most of the equipment in Pennsylvania was intended for much
shallower, lower-pressure wells.”
55
The faulty, hurried adaptations resulted in a blowout in
54
Gold, 197.
55
Gold, 228.
Fierro Barreiro 36
Clearfield County, spilling 35,000 gallons of frack fluid and brine – naturally salty water removed
during the drilling process – into the air.
The anti-fracking movement gained momentum as other, more dramatic events raised
questions about the competence of the energy industry. In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon
drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The tragedy, followed by the futile attempts to clog
the well and stop the spill eroded the public’s trust of energy companies and their promise that
they could drill in an environmentally sound manner.
Just two months later, in June 2010, Josh Fox’s Gasland premiered. As noted earlier, it
showed images of residents near gas wells lighting their faucets on fire, a claim highly contested
by the energy industry and state officials.
“Fox’s film said fracking would endanger the Delaware River watershed, threatening New
York City’s main water source. That created nervousness among members of the city’s media elite,
most of whom hadn’t been paying much attention to shale production.
“Most scientists considered Gasland an effective polemic rather than an accurate depiction
of the risks of fracking. Drilling for oil and gas is a messy, noisy, dirty business and it made sense
that some local residents would resent the impact on communities.”
56
Some scientists highlighted
that methane occurs naturally in some shallow rock formations and that its natural migration to
water wells around the country had been documented. That potentially helped explain the flaming
faucets. Experts also highlighted that methane is nontoxic unless it’s in super-high quantities.
Even though highly contested by the oil and natural gas industry and by scientists, the
documentary would go on to gain acclaim and considerably influence public opinion. To this day,
56
Zuckerman, 327.
Fierro Barreiro 37
activists cite the documentary as an example of the damage that drilling and hydraulic fracturing
can cause to the environment and to communities.
Concerns grew even more after an alarming New York Times article in February 2011.
57
Focusing on the drilling that was occurring in Pennsylvania, the piece by journalist Ian Urbina
reported that wastewater containing high levels of radioactivity from hydraulic fracturing jobs was
sometimes being taken to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that
supplied drinking water.
The reporter found documents showing that hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic
wastewater were trucked to treatments facilities in Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia.
Some of these plants were taking such large amounts of waste with high corrosive salt levels and
dumping it into rivers that downstream utilities started complaining that the water was eating away
at their machines.
Modern hydraulic fracturing techniques inject millions of gallons of water under extremely
high-pressure into the wellbore to crack the shale and release the trapped oil and natural gas. The
volume of water that comes back out of the wells – approximately 10 or more for each gallon of
crude – is proof that contaminated water is the industry’s largest by-product. What flows back to
the surface needs extensive treatment before it can be reused in another well, let alone be released
into nature.
“In shifting away from coal and toward natural gas, we’re trying for cleaner air, but we’re
producing massive amounts of toxic wastewater with salts and naturally occurring radioactive
materials, and it’s not clear we have a plan for properly handling this waste,” John Quigley, former
57
Ian Urbina. “Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers.” The New York Times. Accessed January 13,
2016, http://nyti.ms/202Gi4L.
Fierro Barreiro 38
secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, complained to
the New York Times.
Communities that have suffered with the environmental and social impacts of spills and
blowouts believe that there requirements determining the ideal disposal of hydraulic fracturing
wastewater aren’t strict enough. Regulators also admit an inability to monitor every well that is
drilled in the country. This scenario generates an insecurity that serves as stimulus for unofficial
oversight coming from activists and from the media. The attention highlighting negative cases,
coupled with and the lack of long-term studies that analyze impacts in the environment and in
human health contribute to make the destination of flow back liquids an industry’s Achilles heel.
Urbina’s eight-page feature also touched upon gas seepage into underground water supplies
in Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia. According to residents, the
contamination was caused by drilling. The piece alluded to air pollution from the flaring of excess
gas as well. “In a sparsely populated Sublette County in Wyoming, which has some of the highest
concentrations of wells, vapors reacting to sunlight have contributed to levels of ozone higher than
those recorded in Houston and Los Angeles.”
57
The journalist even criticized the visual changes
caused by 10-story derricks and drilling waste pits, some as large as football fields, and the smell
of raw sewage mixed with gasoline. All of this sitting close to homes. Wastewater spills were
another element risking poisoning the environment, the reporter added. In the three years leading
up to the article, at least 16 wells with high levels of radioactivity failed to contain fluids and one
of them flowed into a creek.
The industry argued that these were isolated incidents and that the production of
wastewater had decreased considerably since most of the fluid employed in hydraulic fracturing
was being recycled. James Grey, chief operating officer of Triana Energy, tried to downplay risks
Fierro Barreiro 39
suggesting that the public was overreacting: “These low levels of radioactivity pose no threat to
the public or worker safety and are more a public perception issue than a real health threat.”
What Mr. Grey neglected to mention is that, apart from the men and women employed by
the companies directly involved in hydraulic fracturing, no one knows the exact formula of the
fluid that will break the shale. The chemical compositions are considered trade secrets in an
extremely competitive industry. The lack of transparency helps add to fears that the concoctions
are toxic and, if leaked, may cause serious health issues.
After much insistence from environmentalists, the Obama administration proposed
legislation in 2015 to make the disclosure of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing solutions mandatory
for companies that drill on federal land. The rule relies on an online database called FracFocus, a
joint venture between industry and intergovernmental groups that claims to house disclosures for
106,132 wells in twenty states. Even though some local governments have their own laws about
making the formulas public and count on the online database to do so, FracFocus compiles little
over six percent of the wells FracTracker Alliance says are active in the country.
The Executive initiative, though a step in the right direction according to activists, still
doesn’t fully address destination of “fracking” wastewater. Dr. Iraj Ershaghi, director of Petroleum
Engineering at USC Viterbi, explains that there are three ways to dispose of the slop: treat it and
reuse it, dump it in the ocean or inject it underground. However, he points out a National Research
Council study that found that wastewater disposal in sandstone and other formations can lubricate
existing fault lines, allowing rocks to slip past one another and cause earthquakes.
5
Although no high-intensity tremors have been registered thus far, the rise in seismicity,
especially in Oklahoma, has raised eyebrows. In October of 2015, a sharp quake shook Cushing,
Fierro Barreiro 40
Oklahoma, located roughly midway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
58
The small town is home
to the largest oil storage facility in the world, which sparked discussion in one of the country’s
most oil friendly states about the consequences of injecting wastewater underground.
The magnitude 4.5 tremor was just one of the thousands that have rocked Oklahoma in
recent years. The Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) registered 5,417 earthquakes during 2014,
the greatest number of tremors ever recorded in a single year.
59
California has been relegated to
second place in seismicity. The temblors have also become more intense. Between 2009 and 2013,
OGS monitored only three earthquakes of magnitude four or higher. That number jumped to 24 in
2014 alone.
60
Scientists believe that much of these movements are due to the tens of millions of
barrels of injected wastewater.
It is important to note that conventional oil drilling also generates wastewater and
earthquakes. In fact, the National Geographic Council survey found that many more temblors are
connected to conventional techniques than to hydraulic fracturing per se.
61
Another type of incident that is related to onshore drilling and has been linked to hydraulic
fracturing is the seepage of gas to water aquifers. Contrary to popular belief, however, it’s not the
hydraulic fracturing process that opens the way to the contaminating flow of methane. “The
fracking radius of influence doesn’t go farther than 150 feet. There isn’t enough energy to bring
58
Michael Wines. “New Concern Over Quakes in Oklahoma Near a Hub of U.S. Oil.” The New York Times. Accessed
December 13, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1LNlEfr.
59
Amberlee P. Darold et al., “Oklahoma Earthquake Report 2014.” Oklahoma Geological Survey. Accessed January
13, 2016, http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/media/research/OF1-2015.pdf.
60
Austin Holland et al., “Multidisciplinary Approach to Identify and Mitigate the Hazard from Induced Seismicity in
Oklahoma.” Oklahoma Geological Survey. Accessed October 30, 2015,
http://wichita.ogs.ou.edu/documents/Holland_etal_2014_AGUpres.pdf.
61
Mark Fischetti. “Fracking Can Cause Earthquakes, but So Can Oil and Gas Extraction.” Scientific American.
Accessed January 13, 2016, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cause-earthquakes/.
Fierro Barreiro 41
this fracture to the surface. People worry that it might impact their water reservoirs, but there’s no
way. Not even with a nuclear bomb,” reassures Dr. Ershaghi.
5
In 2015, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assessment showed that hydraulic
fracturing activities had not led to widespread impacts to drinking water resources. A few months
after the EPA’s data was published, a study from Syracuse University faculty reached a similar
conclusion. With an analysis based on the most comprehensive dataset related to shale energy
development ever collected, the researchers found that gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale had no
impact in the quality of the water in the region.
62
Notwithstanding the naturally occurring cases, it has been documented that problematic
drilling, faulty cement, damaged steel casings and poorly sealed wells have led to methane-filled
drinking water. Be that as it may, these events seem to be in line with the industry’s allegations of
isolated cases. “The EPA’s review found specific instances where well integrity and waste water
management impacted drinking water resources, but they were small compared to the large number
of hydraulically fractured wells across the country.”
63
In this possibly intoxicating scenario, even some pro-fracking activists argue that the
activity requires more regulation and oversight. Rules “ensuring that well casings are set to proper
depths and have tight seals, to be sure chemicals never leak into aquifers” and more “federal rules
to control air pollution from drilling are also needed.”
64
This recognition is an important step that the entire industry needs to take. Getting ahead,
being a first-mover in the change to ensure that these accidents don’t happen, can not only be a
62
D.I. Siegel et al., “Pre-drilling water-quality data of groundwater prior to shale gas drilling in the Appalachian
Basin: Analysis of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation dataset,” Applied Geochemistry 63 (December 2015).
63
Julia P. Valentine. “EPA Releases Draft Assessment on the Potential Impacts to Drinking Water Resources from
Hydraulic Fracturing Activities.” EPA Newsroom. Accessed December 28, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1TuRTFE.
64
Zuckerman, 380.
Fierro Barreiro 42
measure to mitigate impacts and reduce costs from future legislation, but also part of a strategy to
regain public trust and rebuild its reputation. Self-regulation can set standards for collaboration
with environmental authorities and activists, and lessen backlash when isolated cases do happen.
Dr. Ershaghi believes that if the major oil companies hadn’t neglected the shale revolution,
the environmental impacts may have been lessened. “The big companies are generally very
conservative. They can't just apply new technologies. They test them in a lab, they make sure it
works before rolling out in the field,” he says. “That's probably why the entrepreneurs made a lot
of mistakes; they didn't know exactly what they were doing.”
Despite the technological evolution that has taken place during the last several decades, the
industry recognizes that it is currently extracting no more than 10 percent of the oil in North
Dakota’s Bakken formation. As a comparison, recovery from conventional reservoirs is closer to
50 percent. “Maybe the hydraulic fracturing techniques we’re currently employing aren’t the best
ones. There can be better ways of doing it. Economically it would be good for the world and for
the U.S.,” Dr. Ershaghi, an industry veteran, divagates. “We're trying to understand the science of
it. It takes a lot of effort to design that well and to make sure you optimize it. That makes a lot of
difference.”
While the wellbore drilling and the fracturing process aren’t perfected, activists also point
to other elements of the process that they believe should be improved. Some of them believe that
the rapid growth of small communities, the new boomtowns of America, is a problem. Indeed,
some localities are not ready for the exponential increase in truck traffic and longtime residents
have to deal with dust and engine exhaust, on top of emissions from diesel-powered pumps, which
Fierro Barreiro 43
are a health hazard. “Silica sand, which is used in the fracking mixture to prop open the fractures
in rock, can lodge in lungs, potentially causing silicosis.”
65
The overnight population surge can also catch community leaders off-guard. Although
studies have not seen significant changes in crime rates,
36
accommodating the vast influx of
newcomers is a strain on local utilities and services. The sudden rise in demand also impacts prices
and can affect the buying power of those who are not directly employed by the oil and natural gas
industry and, therefore, have not seen a considerable increase in their incomes.
Some areas, such as North Dakota, have experienced such massive migration local
authorities had to resort to man camps to accommodate industry workers. These connected
modular buildings can hold up to one thousand people each. The men get a private room with just
enough space for a single bed, a desk and a dresser. A cafeteria serves meals. “The largest operator
of these man camps will soon house one out of every hundred North Dakotans.”
66
Researchers have pored over data analyzing the oil and gas boomtowns and many have
concluded that finances have improved. “But in towns without a diversified economic base and
very rapid growth, the demand for services, such as roads, housing, schools, drinking water, and
sewage disposal, has outstripped revenues coming in.”
67
Krupnick explains that impacts are
harsher in places where local governments lack a strong tax authority and are dependent on the
state legislature for funding.
Adding to the uncomfortable lodgings, the exorbitant expenses and the food shortages,
workers are also faced with the dangers of the oil fields. An exclusive analysis by Politico
Magazine found that, on average, someone dies about every six weeks in the Bakken. North Dakota
65
Zuckerman, 378.
66
Gold, 46.
67
Krupnick, 19.
Fierro Barreiro 44
has recorded at least 74 casualties since 2006. “The number of deaths is likely even higher because
federal regulators don’t have a systematic way to record oil- and gas-related deaths, and the U.S.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) doesn’t include certain fatalities, such as
those of independent contractors.”
68
Between 2009 and 2013, 9,458 North Dakotan oil and gas
field workers filed injury claims with the state.
69
OSHA, the federal agency charged with enforcing health and safety in the workplace, has
only nine full-time compliance officers in North Dakota. According to some estimates, it would
take them decades to inspect every business in the state. In an interview with Al Jazeera America’s
Josh Rushing, the OSHA area director for North Dakota, Eric Brooks, admitted that the fines doled
out by the agency are not a deterrent to companies, much less an incentive for them to change their
work conditions. “For many employers out there, it’s certainly not the threat of an OSHA fine that
drives the safety program,” he acknowledged.
70
Legislation in North Dakota is also lax at holding companies responsible for liabilities. To
minimize exposure in the drilling fields, firms usually outsource their operations. In many
occasions, none of the employees tasked with the day-to-day work of the rigs is on the payroll of
the company that owns the drilling rights. Even Texas and Louisiana, known for their pro-drilling
stances, have stricter rules aiming at preventing or limiting oil companies from shifting blame to
smaller contractors. “The energy producers never pay for their mistakes; the insurance company
for the contractor pays. It doesn’t give them any incentive to change the procedures that are
unsafe,” criticizes to Politico Justin Williams, a North Dakotan lawyer.
68
Jennifer Gollan. “‘Workers Are Paying for Cheap Gas With Their Lives’.” Politico. Accessed January 14, 2016,
http://politi.co/1iE1IVj.
69
"What is the human cost of the oil boom in North Dakota?," Al Jazeera America, accessed January 14, 2016,
http://bit.ly/202suXQ.
70
“Death on the Bakken shale,” Al Jazeera English YouTube channel, https://youtu.be/XS0fbQBjhbE.
Fierro Barreiro 45
Deeply entrenched corporate behaviors and weak regulating oversight are holding back
changes. It’s a common but unspoken practice for oil companies to offer financial incentives to
workers for speeding up production, sometimes to the detriment of safety. Some OSHA officials
believe that plummeting oil and gas prices are forcing producers to shortchange safety even more.
Add to that the complicating factor that new safety and health regulations are devised at a federal
level, in Washington, D.C., where they may be watered down, weakened or otherwise influences
by pressure from interest groups.
Physical infrastructure problems have also preoccupied environmentalists. A 2015 study
concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimates of gas leaks were considerably
underestimated. Scientists from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, found that natural gas
facilities lose approximately 100 billion cubic feet of gas per year, about eight times the EPA
estimate.
The amount of gas that escapes from gathering and processing facilities in the United States
is enough to heat 3.2 million homes. But the Environmental Defense Fund, which sponsored the
research, is not worried solely about wasting the resource. Its representatives highlight that
methane, the main component of natural gas, is a stronger contributor to greenhouse effects and to
global warming than carbon dioxide. Therefore, if too much methane leaks, the benefits of
generating electricity from gas versus coal can disappear. “The effect that the newfound emissions
would have on climate change over 20 years would be similar to that of 37 coal-fired power
plants.”
71
The alternative means of transportation, especially common in locations where pipelines
have not yet been built, such as North Dakota and Montana, is not without its difficulties. The
71
John Shwartz. "Methane Leaks in Natural-Gas Supply Chain Far Exceed Estimates, Study Says." The New York
Times. Accessed December 28, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1Px54V9.
Fierro Barreiro 46
shale revolution has dramatically increased the quantity of crude transported by rail. According to
the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by train jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008
to 500,000 in 2014
72
and the system is not ready for the new normal. According to the consulting
firm ClearView Energy Partners, accidents involving tanker cars skyrocketed from 2010’s nine
incidents in eight states, spilling 4,900 gallons; to 143 crashes, affecting 21 states with 57,600
gallons of shed oil in 2014.
73
The Department of Transportation, the federal government’s cabinet responsible for safe
and efficient transportation, rolled out new standards to regulate the transit of flammable liquids
in 2015. The phasing out of outdated railcars, however, was considered too slow by activists and
freight trade associations deemed the changes too expensive, vowing to fight the norms. With the
rejection of the Keystone XL, which proposed a connection between Canada’s Tar Sands oil fields
and Texas refineries, passing through North Dakota; and while other high-volume pipelines aren’t
built, rail seems to be the next best option, indicating more discussions on safe and efficient
transportation are on the way.
The New York Times reporter Ian Urbina went on in his 2011 article to conclude that “the
hazards associated with natural gas production and drilling are far less understood than those
associated with other fossil fuels, and the regulations have not kept pace with the natural gas
industry’s expansion.”
Even though the piece is five years old, some activists say that regulators are still playing
catch-up to the oil and natural gas industry. Pennsylvania was a microcosm for the problems that
hastened growth provoked and for the ensuing criticism and discontent that spread across the
72
Gregg Levine. “New ‘bomb train’ rules welcomed with a bang.” Al Jazeera America. Accessed January 14, 2016,
http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2015/5/6/new-bomb-train-rules-go-boom.html.
73
Christina Nunez. “This Map Shows How U.S. Oil Train Accidents Skyrocketed.” National Geographic. Accessed
January 14, 2016, http://bit.ly/1E23d2s.
Fierro Barreiro 47
United States. “Rapid drilling and fracking created problems that [still] need to be addressed. Some
nations require proof that a new technology will not cause public harm before companies can
engage in it. The United States doesn’t subscribe to this approach.”
74
Ultimately, it seems that “the economics of the natural gas revolution involves sizing up
the social benefits of cheaper natural gas and comparing them to the social costs.”
75
Apparently,
the side to which the pendulum swings on the cost-benefit ratio depends on the perspective of the
interlocutor.
74
Gold, 303.
75
Krupnick, 28.
Fierro Barreiro 48
The semantics of “fracking”
According to Darrick Evensen, the first printed use of the word “fracking” came from the
oil and gas industry itself, in an article titled “Fracking – A New Exploratory Tool,” published in
a 1953 edition of the Oil & Gas Journal. The term was a shortened reference to “hydraulic
fracturing,” which, as an industry concept, had just appeared five years earlier in a previous issue
of the same journal.
76
As time contributed to extrapolate the term to mainstream lexicon, it lost its original
meaning as a particular phase of well completion. Now, as Deborah Bailin explains, “unlike
technical experts, who use fracking to mean a very specific thing, nontechnical stakeholders have
broadened its meaning to encompass the entire scope of operations involved in recent oil and gas
development. The word, in popular usage, includes not only the specific step of fracturing the well
but pre- and post-fracturing activities, as well as community impacts – real, potential, or merely
perceived.”
77
The issue with the term is not only the friction that the double meaning causes in
communication. While some apply “fracking” in reference to its original, one-phase-of-oil-
extraction meaning, others employ it as a synonym for oil and gas drilling, but many just focus on
the lewd associations. “In popular culture (including but not limited to the science-fiction
television show Battlestar Galactica), ‘frack’ and ‘fracking’ have been used as substitutes for
similar-sounding obscenities that begin with the letter F.”
78
76
Darrick Evensen et al., "What’s the ‘fracking’ problem? One word can’t say it all," The Extractive Industries and
Society 1 n. 2 (November 2014): 131.
77
Deborah Bailin. "Fracking or Hydraulic Fracturing? What’s in a Name?." Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed
December 23, 2015, http://bit.ly/1Pw14Cp.
78
Evensen, 130.
Fierro Barreiro 49
“Fracking” has become a linguistic weapon in the shale development culture war. The word
seems to be the preferred term of opponents, who link it with negative connotations and impacts.
79
Environmental groups have applied a vulgar meaning to the expression through slogans such as
“Don’t Frack with NY!”
When it comes to energy policy, to which the tight oil and gas revolution has become an
integral component in the last two decades, the discussion isn’t simple. Littlefield explains that
language is constantly used to manipulate the discussion, with loose terminology deliberately
applied to tap into public sentiment. “Energy policy is not necessarily determined by the soundness
of arguments raised but by the effectiveness of their presentation.”
80
That logic stresses the
importance of framing as a tool to gain ground in the shale development culture war.
In the public perception battle, it seems that the unfavorable interpretations have become
more prevalent. One study has shown that using the word “frack” in survey questions can decrease
by 12 percent the number of respondents who support hydraulic fracturing.
81
Another paper
indicated that respondents used negative language six times as often as positive to describe
“fracking.”
78
A third article noted that the term elicited pessimistic comments, with mentions of it
being bad or harmful and relating it to environmental degradation and to water contamination.
82
Zuckerman believes that members of the oil and gas industry “are too quick to gloss over
concerns about their activities, an insouciance that created a public relations nightmare for their
business”
83
and contributes to the industry’s bad reputation. The feeling is partially shared by Dr.
79
Christopher E. Clarke et al., "Public opinion on energy development: The interplay of issue framing, top-of-mind
associations, and political ideology," Energy Policy 81 (June 2015): 131.
80
Littlefield, 783.
81
Climek et al. “Fracking and the Polarization of Public Opinion.” Louisiana State University Public Policy Research
Lab. Accessed January 15, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Q1XWSC.
82
Clarke, 135.
83
Zuckerman, 377.
Fierro Barreiro 50
Iraj Ershaghi, who thinks that trade associations have failed at passing on the message that
hydraulic fracturing is not dangerous. “When an airliner crashes, do people stop travelling? When
there are car accidents, does that mean people stop driving? They don't. People know there are
going to be investigations and, if needed, improvements will be made,” says the director of
Petroleum Engineering at USC Viterbi.
84
Recent research has proven that multiple factors can increase perceived risk. People tend
to react proportionately worse when a potential hazard is involuntarily imposed, its consequences
are unknown, and those in charge appear to be untrustworthy or unresponsive to public concerns.
The media emphasis on incidents that posed harm to communities – Pennsylvania is an example –
the lack of long-term research on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, and the oil and gas industry’s
downplaying of issues as isolated cases have all contributed to the frame activists have worked to
build around “fracking.” This combination of factors forms the perfect public relations storm. It’s
the industry’s current challenge.
Onshore drilling has many intrinsic threats, as we’ve seen. That characteristic underlines
the importance of managing risk and people’s risk perception. This has proven a significant task
for the industry, which needs to establish public trust and has just recently realized that their
conservative approach to communications cost them the control over the “fracking” lexicon and
was ultimately costing them the battle for public opinion.
From a public relations perspective, audiences’ awareness of the link between “fracking”
and its possible harmful consequences can be interpreted as a win for activists. They’ve
successfully framed the term in their perspective.
84
Iraj Ershaghi, interviewed by the author, November 10, 2015.
Fierro Barreiro 51
The frame to win the debate
Communications researchers have attempted to find alternatives to “fracking” that don’t
generate confusion and that don’t carry the same stigma. Evensen and Clarke experimented with
variations between “shale gas development” and “shale oil or gas development” and proved
optimistic results, distancing the term from obscene connotation and avoiding polarizing
responses. Positive language, for example, was three times more common for describing “shale
gas development” than “fracking”
85
and respondents made positive comments about “shale oil or
gas development,” indicating it to be good or desirable.
86
The surveys also demonstrated that people tend to make constructive economic
associations, such as job creation and financial growth, when prompted with “shale oil or gas
development.” The term also provoked impressions of increasing quality of life. The researchers
suggested that the word “development,” as part of the expression, carries positive overtones,
mentioning the forward-looking synonyms “advancement,” “improvement,” and “progress” to
contextualize its encouraging assimilation.
Furthermore, Evensen’s analysis revealed that substituting “fracking” for the phrase “shale
gas development” increased support for this form of energy extraction from 46 percent to 62
percent. “Not only that, but the percentage of ‘strongly oppose’ responses in the ‘fracking’ sample
is nearly twice as large as in the ‘shale gas development’ sample.”
85
The authors also considered, and dismissed, other terms that have been used and
recommended to discuss the issue. They argue that each has its own restriction. “‘Unconventional’
[gas/oil development] assumes knowledge of the history of gas/oil extraction and, as technology
progresses, is becoming increasingly difficult to define. [Shale gas/oil] ‘Extraction,’ like ‘hydraulic
85
Evensen, 133.
86
Clarke, 135.
Fierro Barreiro 52
fracturing,’ limits the conversation to one stage in the industrial process. ‘Fracing’ adds confusion
by defying common pronunciation; consider similar verbs, e.g., spacing, racing, bracing.”
87
Considering the input from the studies and EID and NTNG’s preference for highlighting
the economic benefits of drilling activities, it would only make sense to shift the vocabulary of
their communication from “fracking” to “shale development.” Use of the latter would not only
invoke economic assimilations, reinforcing the messages that are already being pushed out, but
also distance the industry’s verbiage from the one employed by activists, which tends to carry a
derogatory meaning in its application.
Supporting the argument for the change in wording in the trade associations’ messaging is
Hilary Boudet’s findings. Similar to what the Pew Research Center encountered in early 2012, the
Oregon State University scientist discovered two years later, that Americans were still largely
unaware and undecided about hydraulic fracturing. “Over half of those surveyed had heard nothing
at all or only a little about it, and more than half didn't know or were undecided about whether to
support or oppose it. Among the minority who has formed an opinion, respondents were nearly
split between support and opposition.”
88
With more than half of Americans unaware of what “fracking” is, there’s a clear
opportunity for the industry to shape discourse and introduce the subject as “shale development,”
driving positive correlations from the outset.
Another interesting element of Boudet’s research was the characteristics associated with
opposition or support for “fracking,” making it possible to draw an outline of people in each end
of the spectrum. “Women, those holding egalitarian worldviews, those who read newspapers more
87
Evensen, 135.
88
Hilary Boudet et al., "'Fracking' controversy and communication: Using national survey data to understand public
perceptions of hydraulic fracturing," Energy Policy 65 (February 2014): 63.
Fierro Barreiro 53
than once a week, those more familiar with hydraulic fracturing, and those who associate the
process with environmental impacts are more likely to oppose fracking.” Conversely, supporters
“tend to be older, hold a bachelor's degree or higher, politically conservative, watch TV news more
than once a week, and associate the process with positive economic or energy supply outcomes.”
88
Evensen’s data complements Boudet’s in this instance. He realized that people closest to
where “fracking” was occurring were better informed, evoking “by far the largest percentage of
responses that mentioned environmental impacts, economic impacts, social impacts, positive
language, negative language, and mixed language.”
89
The data also shows that communities adjacent to hydraulic fracturing operations were
more interested in risks and benefits. This reality led to stronger media coverage, both in quantity
and in depth, and more outreach from the industry through town halls and landowner meetings.
Although a broad overview, the demographic breakdown gives communicators an idea of
whom to target. It’s a general roadmap to who will be more impacted by positive shale
development messages and, consequently, have higher chances of sharing content the trade
associations publish on their social media profiles. It also contributes to build a strategy for geo-
targeted posts that have more explanatory, less detailed information distributed to places that are
not directly affected by drilling.
The industry’s positive economic messages are easier for individuals to grasp because the
benefits of shale development have measures in terms of spending, employment and royalties that
are well-established standards. Not to mention that the financials are the strongest indicators the
oil and gas industry has to prove its beneficial impact. “However there is very little in the peer
reviewed literature on costed externalities because the industry is so young. A further complication
89
Evensen, 133.
Fierro Barreiro 54
is that externalities will inevitably be highly specific to jurisdiction, geography and
demographics.”
90
Unforeseen consequences can't yet be predicted because, even though there's a large
sample of data coming from the 1.7 million active wells in the country, there hasn't been enough
historical data to make a statistically sound estimate. This scenario reinforces the need for the trade
associations to localize their communications and build strong, long-lasting relationships with
stakeholders as soon as possible. These connections can act as buffers in case they eventually need
to rely on them for help when dealing with a reputational crisis as a consequence of failure in
operations.
One of these critical situations will probably result, as we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, from
another environmental problem caused as a consequence of drilling operations. Similar to the trade
associations’ focus on economic benefits, activists tend to embrace hydraulic fracturing’s harm to
nature and its impacts in communities as their main message. A content analysis of fracking-related
videos on YouTube, the largest video sharing platform on the web, found that most of videos dealt
with the social and psychological impacts of operations, referring to how flora and fauna should
be valued.
91
On their deep dive into the platform’s “fracking” videos, the researchers found that
laypeople used the uploaded material to voice concerns about aesthetic, economic and
environmental impacts, but also their worries about daily life, from housing to traffic. The fact that
YouTube is also the world’s second largest search engine, only behind its parent company Google,
puts a premium on the platform’s importance to communicators. Therefore, oil and natural gas
90
Wheeler, 303.
91
Rusi Jaspal, Andrew Turner, and Brigitte Nerlich, "Fracking on YouTube: Exploring Risks, Benefits and Human
Values," Environmental Values 23 n. 5 (October 2014): 504.
Fierro Barreiro 55
industry representatives should be uneasy when “the top four most commented-on videos were all
negative in tone, highlighting environmental risks and or human costs over economic benefits.
Equivalently, all videos with over 500 comments are negative. The large majority of positive
videos, which focused on economic benefits, are marketing videos of gas companies, whereas the
negative videos come from a wider range of sources.”
92
That the researchers labeled the pro-industry content “marketing videos” speaks to the
quality of the material. Even though the authors don’t go into detail of what their definition
consists, it’s safe to assume that it’s mostly based on a one-way model of communication.
Traditionally, conservative companies focus on pushing out content deemed favorable to them,
not necessarily addressing the audience’s interests. It’s also common for corporations, especially
in the oil and gas industry, to leave comments and other forms of engagement on the videos
unanswered.
Jaspal, Turner and Nerlich go on to say that, in addition to the important perspectives on
economic and environmental repercussions of “fracking,” “there is a pressing need to better
understand social systems, personal experiences and threats to identity.”
93
A possible solution to counterbalance the negative tone of the current uploaded videos and
focus on social elements of shale development is to have third-party experts – such as independent
researchers or homeowners that are leaseholders, for example – devise and publish positive content
about the operation and its effects. Scientists are experts in their fields and they tend to point to
conclusions derived from unbiased data. They also have the knowledge to delineate the impacts
on American’s day-to-day in a comprehensive manner, so that the non-scientific community can
understand and relate. The homeowners can also shed light on what it’s like to live in areas directly
92
Jaspal, Turner, and Nerlich, 511.
93
Jaspal, Turner, and Nerlich, 524.
Fierro Barreiro 56
impacted by shale development, showing the social side of life next to a drilling rig and creating
an emotional connection that would be difficult for an industry trade association to construct.
When experts and people going through life near hydraulic fracturing sites share their
stories, it contributes to make the accounts more credible, not to mention more convincing. “The
more people are transported into the world of a narrative, the more they feel immersed in a story;
the more likely they are to change their beliefs to be more consistent with those expressed in the
world of narrative.”
94
It’s important to note that disclosing any kind of support from the trade associations, be it
financial or creative, to the production of these third party materials is paramount to transparency
and to maintaining everyone’s reputations intact. Nonetheless, the final content can be shared on
the associations’ channels and, because they didn’t produce it directly, it carries an extra layer of
credibility, making it more trustworthy than something with the Energy In Depth or North Texans
for Natural Gas seal. It is also a way to take the lead and attempt to drive the discussion on topics
that are contentious for the industry, possibly jumping ahead of activists.
Examples for why “fracking” should be banned tend to focus on grave harm to specific
regions. This damage is very concrete and extremely visible – just remember the Gasland images
of people lighting their taps on fire.
95
Meanwhile, arguments in favor of shale development are
concentrated on what can sometimes be considered more ethereal benefits to the nation’s economy
and to the mitigation of climate change. These advancements are harder to capture in images or
sound bites, so personifying them with interviews and testimonials would make them more
relatable.
94
Christopher Graves. “Back to our roots: the Science Beneath the Art of Communications.” Institute for Public
Relations. Accessed December 26, 2016, http://bit.ly/1Je1YH1.
95
“GASLAND flaming faucet,” accessed on December 13, 2015, https://youtu.be/UrnnQ17SH_A.
Fierro Barreiro 57
Relying on third parties to address communications can also be effective in reaching
networks that the trade associations wouldn’t otherwise connect with. “In an age when news media
are highly varied and often polarized, people can safely avoid contradictory information by
limiting their information sources to those that confirm their biases, a behavior that probably leads
to even greater attitude extremity.”
96
Raimi and Leary’s conclusion accentuates the importance of creating unbiased, interesting
and entertaining content that can talk both to people looking for information to form an opinion
on the matter and to shale development supporters. At the same time, covering elements of the
drilling operation that are sensitive to activists might be a way to address their concerns, not
aggravate them, and to bring them to the table for a qualified social media discussion.
A way to tackle this approach is to show the technological evolution that is making shale
development safer and improving the hydraulic fracturing stage specifically. This can be done with
researchers presenting lab tests in progress, before rolling the new practices out to the field, and
results that point to efficiency increases and reductions in waste that minimize social costs and the
environmental footprint. A positive collateral is that this tactic also strengthens the message that
the industry is focused on science to guide its operations, distancing it from isolated accidents that
are inherent to any industrial activity. “Technology is improving, we are much better today than
we were five years ago, and we will be much better five years from now. But I don't think the
public understands that,” laments Dr. Ershaghi.
97
96
Raimi and Leary, 84.
97
Iraj Ershaghi, interviewed by the author, November 10, 2015.
Fierro Barreiro 58
To help inscrease public understanding about “fracking” and implement the above-
mentioned tactics, four principles about dispelling rumors and debunking myths need to be
considered, as Christopher Graves explains
98
:
1. Arguing the facts doesn’t help. “Correcting people actually increased misperceptions,”
alerts Graves. This signals directly engaging in online discussions that will probably be
pointless. Avoiding such encounters can prove a better strategy.
2. Repeating the myth inadvertently popularizes it. That is fitting when thinking about
Gasland. The oil and gas industry should not reference it anymore. Talking about it
generates curiosity in those who haven’t heard about it and reinforces it for those who have,
turning “false claims into recommendations.”
3. Affirmation works. Communicators may have more success changing minds after making
the audience feel good about themselves. Recognizing the value in the oppositions’ view
may be more effective to prove a point, since people tend to become more flexible after
being complimented.
4. Use the power of narrative. Graves warns that “humans, it seems, must have a story line,
and in a void, will create one.” In the void of answers from the oil and gas industry, people
will naturally shift towards the environmentalists’ narrative, especially considering the
industry’s reputation.
Before closing, Graves also points out that human empathy doesn’t scale well. “We can
care very deeply about one, single stranger, but that empathy wanes rapidly as the group of victims
grows. Once it becomes a large number we cease caring.” That reinforces the approach of focusing
98
Christopher Graves. “Why Debunking Myths About Vaccines Hasn’t Convinced Dubious Parents.” Institute for
Public Relations. Accessed December 26, 2015, http://www.instituteforpr.org/21507/.
Fierro Barreiro 59
on individuals, either scientists or leaseholders, to give their perspective on tangible impacts. It
also justifies activists’ success when talking about highly localized incidents that affected a small
number of people.
Fierro Barreiro 60
How two trade associations communicate “fracking”
In March 2012, the Pew Research Center published a study aimed at understanding
Americans’ priorities in a period of rising energy prices. The paper found that expansion of
alternative sources, such as wind and solar, were still high on most people’s (52 percent) list. But
the data also showed that expanding exploration and production of oil and natural gas had gained
importance, ranking as the main issue for 39 percent of respondents.
In regards to hydraulic fracturing the information was surprising. The survey exposed the
lack of awareness about the technique: 37 percent of Americans had heard nothing at all; 37 percent
had heard a little; and only 26 percent had heard a lot about the practice. On the other hand, it
showed support for the industry from those who knew something about the process: 52 percent
favored its use and 35 percent were opposed.
99
By then, one of the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s initiatives to educate
stakeholders on hydraulic fracturing was already three years old. Energy In Depth (EID) was
founded in 2009, targeting areas where shale development was taking place. Eventually, the
national project broke down into seven outreach programs, in the Marcellus (focusing on New
York and Pennsylvania), Ohio, Texas, Mountain States (mostly Colorado), California, Florida and
Illinois.
“Our goal is to fight disinformation with facts. We try to counter propaganda and
misleading statements with science,” explains Dave Quast, California Director of EID. He cites
the “now discredited” Gasland documentary as an example of deceiving content. “We’re the
industry, we don’t expect people to believe us, but we have to make sure that when the activists
are wrong, and they're not always wrong, we correct them. We attempt to point stakeholders to
99
"As Gas Prices Pinch, Support for Oil and Gas Production Grows," Pew Research Center, accessed January 15,
2016, http://pewrsr.ch/1n7qDTT.
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research and credible information: believe the scientists.”
100
And the scientists have indicated that
EID’s behavior is important because “exposure to one-sided information is particularly likely with
fracking because anti-fracking activism has received more press attention than pro-fracking
arguments.”
101
Experts with ties to the initiative won’t confirm it, but industry executives affirm that the
goal behind EID and similar trade associations’ communication strategy is credibility. “It doesn’t
make sense for companies to fight the public relations battle individually and people won’t believe
the corporations as much as they trust industry associations,” justifies a campaign specialist at a
major U.S. oil firm.
102
The sector has a troubled reputation, which pushed it to create third-party
entities to tackle the hydraulic fracturing controversy. Although EID doesn’t hide its affiliation to
the IPAA, it’s also a connection that isn’t often highlighted.
Another important pro-industry initiative is North Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG). The
group describes itself “as a grassroots organization that aims to give a voice to those who support
natural gas.”
103
Funded by four of the United States’ largest independent oil and gas producers –
Devon Energy, EnerVest, EOG Resources, and XTO Energy – NTNG strives to tell the stories of
benefits the shale revolution has brought to the Barnett Shale area of North Texas. Its main tool is
social media, countering “a small but vocal opposition that uses the Internet to spread fear and bad
information.”
North Texans for Natural Gas is a sign that the conservative oil and gas industry might be
catching up to its detractors, especially when it comes to using modern communications tools and
100
Dave Quast, interviewed by the author, November 19, 2015.
101
Kaitlin Toner Raimi and Mark R. Leary, "Belief superiority in the environmental domain: Attitude extremity and
reactions to fracking," Journal of Environmental Psychology 40 (December 2014): 84.
102
Not-for-attribution interview conducted by the author, November 19, 2015.
103
http://www.northtexansfornaturalgas.com/about
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strategies to shape public opinion. Environmentalists and activists have been very successful in
their use of social media and grassroots campaigns to manifest views against the extraction and
use of fossil fuels. All that for a fraction of the cost of print or television advertising. “We certainly
don’t know how to do it as well as our opposition yet,” recognizes the campaign specialist.
102
“Nowadays, focusing on media interaction is important, but it’s certainly not sufficient.
You have to look at the digital realm, especially social networks like Facebook and Twitter,
because that’s where people are increasingly getting their news,” contextualizes a communications
professional working for NTNG. “Social networks are also where people spend a considerable
amount of their time, so pushing out content on social media would only make sense.”
104
EID’s
Quast agrees and takes it a step further: “We want to impact anyone that drives a car, uses
electricity. We’re open to communicating in any way people like to be communicated with. We
want to be where our audience gets their information.”
The three industry communications experts interviewed for this paper agreed that social
media has a unifying characteristic that is imperative for engaging audiences and to mobilizing
support. The ease to share content also works in the trade associations’ favor. Individuals are only
a click away from pushing out industry material to their networks and, when they do, it’s an act of
recognition of the usefulness of the content. As if flows through digital word-of-mouth, it
instantaneously builds credibility, becoming more trustworthy. Nine of every 10 people believe
word-of-mouth, a considerable increase from the five/ten that trust digital ads.
105
The oil firm campaign specialist pointed out that people tend to surround themselves with
friends that share thoughts and interests. That’s why, she says, it’s crucial to identify the most
104
Not-for-attribution interview conducted by the author, November 20, 2015.
105
Marisa Grimes. “Nielsen: Global consumers’ trust in ‘earned’ advertising grows in importance.” Nielsen.
Accessed January 16, 2016, http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2012/nielsen-global-consumers-trust-in-
earned-advertising-grows.html.
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effective way to engage them. That increases the odds of them sharing information with their
networks and amplifying the effectiveness of the message.
To enhance the social networking experience, however, tools like Facebook build their
platforms to learn from users’ habits and keep undesired information from cluttering their
newsfeeds. Investment in ads and other promotional tactics aren’t always worthwhile, so the trade
associations’ challenge has been to design content that will reach people who don’t yet know that
they’re interested in shale development. “You may have to use clichés, memes, or other common
expressions to get people’s attention, and you have to be constantly changing your approach,”
exemplifies the NTNG employee.
The goal of the trade associations’ social presence is to become a relevant part of the
conversation without the traditional media’s filters. This approach is only going to be successful,
though, if the audience deems the content worthy – of their time and their engagement. That’s why
“if you can add a photo of something people recognize – such as a commonly used meme or
catchphrase – you’ll get far more interest, and potentially from people outside your traditional
circle.”
104
A strategy employed both by Energy In Depth and North Texans for Natural Gas is to tag
along on issues of the day and to what is happening in the news – a concept known as
“newsjacking.” Both groups believe that to be more impactful, it’s important to have a rapid
response structure than to have a calendar planned in advance. “People don’t go to social media to
see something you created four months ago. They want to see what’s new,” explains the NTNG
communications professional. So far, they deem the strategy successful to reach an array of
stakeholders, ranging from local communities in California and in North Texas and the “general
public,” to regulators, policy makers and the media.
Fierro Barreiro 64
Engaging with people who have opposing views, however, is more complicated. To tackle
that task, they resort to research crafted into “easy-to-digest” materials that have been created in
advance. Both EID and NTNG share that type of content – such as infographics – with people who
ask questions, including critics.
The social media sphere in which Energy In Depth and North Texans for Natural Gas
compete for attention is crowded. Utilizing the enterprise-level analytics tool Crimson Hexagon to
search multiple platforms and gather data related to the shale revolution between January 1, 2014,
and December 31, 2015, the author found more than six million posts.
With the microblogging software Twitter representing 98 percent of the conversation, a
deeper look into who is driving the chatter is warranted. Surprisingly, profiles from politicians, a
regulatory agency and media outlets were seven of the top nine most active handles.
Leading in absolute number of posts and related posts, however, was New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo (@nygovcuomo), who saw himself in the middle of a heated dispute before his
administration determined a ban on hydraulic fracturing in 2014. California Governor Jerry Brown
(@jerrybrowngov) also appears as the nation’s third largest oil producing state took into effect
stricter rules for drilling that he had signed into law in late 2013. The third politician on the list is
President Barack Obama (@barackobama), who has been constantly pushed by activists to tighten
rules regarding drilling in the United States.
Connected to President Obama’s administration, the Environmental Protection Agency
(@epa) was the second most active handle on the list. During the period researched, the federal
entity was involved in a battle for stricter regulations on onshore drilling and was also responsible
for a report that established that hydraulic fracturing was not a major threat to groundwater.
Fierro Barreiro 65
Bloomberg Business (@business) and Reuters (@reuters) also appear as active sources
because of their coverage of the shale revolution and its impacts. Another media outlet that appears
as fairly active is EcoWatch (@ecowatch), an outlet focused on environmental news, green living
and sustainable business.
Closing the list, the other two were activist group Fracktivist (@fracktivist), which
preaches a “frack free world,” and the official profile of the documentary Gasland
(@gaslandmovie), through which director Josh Fox manifested his opinions against hydraulic
fracturing and marketed the two-movie franchise.
As it relates to most mentioned hashtags, “#fracking” was by far the most cited with almost
2.5 million mentions. Then came “#natgas,” for natural gas, with 260,000 citations, “#shale”
(~190,000), “#oil” (~82,000) and “#environment” (~110,000).
Considering that none of them are critical and that hashtags also function as elements to
refine searches, it’s safe to assume that the trade associations can easily “own” a hashtag by
constantly mentioning it and posting related comment under that umbrella.
Given the restrictions of the Crimson Hexagon software to determine age and gender of
social media users, since the tool depends on self-reported information on profiles, the numbers
aren’t as large as the total posts related to overall topic. However, of the identifiable messages, 64
percent were male and the vast majority of posts came from individuals older than 35 years-of-
age.
Considering the 20 most influential posts made between January 1 and December 31 of
2015, none came from profiles related to oil and gas industry nor from activists. They were put out
by either news organizations, such as Business Insider, The Boston Globe, Fox News, Wall Street
Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, BBC Radio 4, Scientific American, NPR, The
Fierro Barreiro 66
Economist, CNBC, Newsweek, Detroit Free Press; by educational entities connected to research,
like MIT, Columbia University, Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center; or by a political group:
Liberal Democrats.
Much like the trade associations, who have a tendency to highlight the economic results
and social impacts related to financial gains of shale development, the most influential posts of
2015 were all in that realm. Criticism came mostly from negative information, although portrayed
in an unbiased “matter-of-fact” tone. A study linking “fracking” to increases in hospitalization, a
piece about how drilling operations might endanger future archeological excavations, a survey
showing decreasing support from “fracking” in the Midwest, and government criticism for
permitting “fracking” projects were the main elements brought up in Twitter’s most influential
posts.
On the positive side were news of how Saudi Arabia is considering investing in shale,
former mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg’s criticism on the state’s ban on hydraulic
fracturing; the absence of a connection between hydraulic fracturing and the California drought; a
piece on how the shale revolution changed the world, an editorial on the EPA’s findings that
determined no widespread water pollution from hydraulic fracturing; and another on how natural
gas is the United States’ main source of electricity thanks to shale revolution, among others.
Looking specifically into the share of the conversation that the trade associations handle
on social media, it’s clear that they aren’t relied upon for information. The most mentioned profiles
and the most influential tweets are already a hint of that. Breaking down the volume trend
comparison, as Figure 7 shows, the trade associations are responsible for roughly 2 percent of what
is said online about keywords that could be related to them (in this case the search was for
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#fracking, #shale, #natgas, #oil, #hydraulic_fracturing, "shale revolution", "shale development",
#shaledev).
Figure 7 – The volume trend comparison shows that the trade associations (yellow) have no influence on the spikes
in the overall online conversation about hydraulic fracturing
Source: Crimson Hexagon
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Social media channels best practices
The Pew Research Center found, in a 2014 paper, that Facebook is by far the most popular
social media platform among online adults.
106
Similarly, YouTube is the world’s second largest
search engine, only behind its parent company Google. And Twitter, even though smaller – 23
percent of online adults use it – is the social network through which users get most of their news.
107
Given each platform’s peculiarities, research has pointed the most efficient ways to post
content to each of them in order to maximize the organic reach of the message.
108
Social network
management application Buffer compiled multiple studies and showed that Facebook posts with
40 characters receive 86 percent more engagement than those with a higher count. Similarly, tweets
shorter than 100 characters have a 17 percent higher engagement rate. Applying the same
methodology to YouTube, the authors concluded that the most popular videos are shorter than
three minutes, preferably between 1.5 and 2.5 minutes.
These lengths were considered optimal because posts with these recommended sizes tended
to receive more likes and more comments on Facebook, and more retweets and more replies on
Twitter. The shorter posts are also in line with the internet user’s shrinking attention span of eight
seconds, almost half the 12 seconds recorded in 2000 by the Associated Press.
109
Attractiveness of images and layout, length, and loading time are also crucial to hold
viewers’ attention. Software maker Adobe surveyed 2,000 Americans and concluded that they’re
increasingly selective of what to view and reading. When limited to a 15-minute window to
106
“Social Media Update 2014,” accessed January 18, 2016, http://pewrsr.ch/1xPGzft.
107
Elisa Shearer. “5 key takeaways about Twitter, Facebook and news use.” Pew Research Center. Accessed
January 2, 2016, http://pewrsr.ch/1PILjJT.
108
Kevan Lee. “Infographic: The Optimal Length for Every Social Media Update and More.” Buffer Blog. Accessed
March 4, 2015, http://buff.ly/1KnLhUE.
109
“Attention Span Statistics,” accessed October 15, 2015, http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-
statistics/.
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consume content, for instance, two thirds of consumers would rather watch a video than read an
article. That stresses the need to capture their attention as early as possible and also raises the
importance of fun content. “Entertainment value becomes increasingly important to break through
the noise,” the Adobe study determined.
110
As people become more and more skeptical about
content authenticity, entertainment is the easiest route to get a message across.
Other details also work to draw attention to posts and further user engagement. The use of
hashtags is an example. “A hashtag immediately expands the reach of your tweet beyond just those
who follow you, to reach anyone interested in that hashtag phrase or keyword.”
111
It also stimulates
engagement, with posts containing hashtags getting twice as many interactions as those without.
However, Buffer suggests that tweets have no more than two hashtags of about six characters each
to avoid confusing readers and to maximize chances of users multiplying the content.
Considering the trade associations’ penchant for using economic arguments, Twitter’s
limited character count make it perfect to share “bite-sized” bits of information and specific data.
The main goal for the trade associations in the microblogging platform, however, should be to give
readers an option to dive deeper. Therefore, EID and NTNG always need a link to drive traffic to
where people can find more details.
Another important element of social media language is the addition of visual elements. The
human brain deciphers image elements simultaneously, processing visuals 60,000 times faster than
text, which is decoded in a linear, sequential manner. In other words, humans are wired to take in
visual content faster and more effectively than words. If that weren’t enough, tweets with images
receive 150 percent more retweets and general social media posts with relevant images were
110
“The State of Content: Expectations on the Rise,” accessed October 15, 2015, http://adobe.ly/1LjDYwh.
111
Kevan Lee. “A Scientific Guide to Hashtags: How Many, Which Ones, and Where to Use Them.” Buffer Blog.
Accessed January 18, 2016, http://buff.ly/1WowVdo
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proven to get almost twice as many views than those without. Certain categories, like politics and
news, benefited more from the addition of images more than others.
112
Unsurprisingly, the best
visual engagement content for social media were pictures, followed by video and infographics, a
ludic combination of images and text.
It’s important to note, however, that images need to add to the text or illustrate it, not just
be inserted at random. Trite or overused stock photos, share-bait images and boring, irrelevant
visuals should also be avoided.
113
When thinking about visuals, apart from the length and visuals, narration also plays an
important role in keeping users engaged. Therefore, when talking in favor of shale development,
EID and NTNG should use female voiceovers. "It's much easier to find a female voice that
everyone likes than a male voice that everyone likes," explained Stanford University Professor
Clifford Nass in an interview on CNN. "It's a well-established phenomenon that the human brain
is developed to like female voices."
114
The fondness in this case is also related to how the listener
is going to assimilate the information and learn from it.
After the text, the visuals and the scripts are set, the next step to consider is the best moment
to upload. Time of day and day of the week play a crucial role on how the audience is going to
engage. The trade associations should have a solid understanding of their fans and subscribers’
habits in each platform to better reach them. There are, however, general guidelines that can be
considered. For Facebook, end of the week, Thursday to Sunday, during the afternoon, between 1
p.m. and 4 p.m., is usually best. Click-through rates are also higher for Twitter during weekends,
112
Caleb Gonsalves. “Skyword Study: Add Images to Improve Content Performance.” Content Standard. Accessed
January 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/1OgR69U.
113
Kathryn Aragon. “High-Quality Content? Not without High-Quality Images on Your Blog.” Where Content Meets
Conversion. Accessed January 18, 2016, http://www.kathrynaragon.com/images-on-your-blog/.
114
Brandon Griggs. “Why computer voices are mostly female." CNN. Accessed January 17, 2016,
http://cnn.it/1RZF5Iy.
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but morning and end-of-day commutes and lunchtime are also good alternatives to get through on
the microblogging platform.
115
YouTube also has a comparable rhythm, with viewership
increasingly growing starting Thursday and suddenly dropping on Sunday. Thursdays and Fridays,
the best time to submit videos are between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday that trend
shifts to the morning, between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
116
Finally, before clicking the submit button, communicators should have in mind ways to
improve search engine optimization (SEO), making it easier for people to find their content
through organic searches. That’s why choosing carefully the keywords that will describe the video
and make up the title, description and tags are important. All of those are scanned by Google’s
algorithm, for example, serving to drive traffic.
Specifically for Facebook, after it started hosting videos, it became essential to post the
material there, too, not just because of its auto-load feature – which helps engage users as they
scroll through the newsfeed – but because the platform’s algorithm tends to reward the videos
uploaded to Facebook with more organic reach.
Oil and gas trade associations should consider best practices as a guide, but ultimately
acknowledge what BuzzFeed's former Chief Revenue Officer Andy Wiedlin said: “People share
things that make them look clever and cool. They are building their own personal brands.”
117
115
Courtney Seiter. “A Guide to High Quality Social Media Sharing: What, When and How to Share.” Buffer Blog.
Accessed February 14, 2015, http://buff.ly/1U8bNXA.
116
Matt Gielen. "Want To Know The Best Days And Times To Post YouTube Videos? Here’s A Yearly Calendar."
Tubefilter. Accessed January 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/1y6VP9v.
117
Emma Goodman. “DME: Making advertising social: BuzzFeed's Andy Wieldin.” World Association of Newspapers
and News Publishers. Accessed January 18, 2016, http://bit.ly/1U89ynb.
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Conclusion: getting the “fracking” message across
Communications researchers acknowledge that multiple individuals and institutions can
influence the public agenda. Organizations have that power through impact on the media mainly
by providing information subsidies.
118
In other words, industry groups, such as oil and gas trade
associations, can produce bits of information that represent their viewpoints and supply those to
the media, possibly guiding coverage.
However, in an extremely polarized media environment individuals tend to turn to sources
of information that reaffirm their beliefs and values. That segmentation limits the reach of
communicators and makes it difficult to shape public discourse and policy.
Social media comes in at an opportune moment, handing every user a potential megaphone
and a license to speak directly to anyone that’s connected to the web. It is an agenda-setting tool
that gives power to those who are able to create interesting, compelling and engaging stories that
resonate with the public.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is another example of a subject that has become
extremely polarized. Critics will point to environmental damage risks, such as natural gas seeping
into water wells and the incorrect disposal of hydraulic fracturing wastewater; and the possible
negative social impacts, like the problems localities face because of rapid growth and the strain it
brings to communities' infrastructure. On the other hand, supporters will highlight the economic
and financial benefits that the operation brings not only to communities where extraction is
happening, with rising employment and high-paying jobs, but to the country, as gasoline and
natural gas prices fall to all-time lows and the United States steadily trails a path to reduced reliance
on Middle Eastern oil and toward energy independence.
118
Brooke Weberling, "Framing breast cancer: Building an agenda through online advocacy and fundraising," Public
Relations Review 38 v. 1 (March 2012): 109.
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In the middle are the trade associations, who spearhead part of the effort to provide
information subsidies to social media users and drive the conversation around shale development.
The task, however, is not easy. The oil and gas industry has been shamed in public opinion and its
reputation has been seriously tarnished.
Activists and their successful communications strategies play a big role in this image
deconstruction. Controversial information, like the images shown on the movie Gasland, have
gained prominence. In November 2012, for example, when the shale revolution was at its peak,
British researchers Rusi Jaspal Andrew Turner and Brigitte Nerlich found that a trailer for the
documentary was the most viewed fracking-related clip on YouTube
119
, with more than two
million views. Gasland, the scientists realized, was much more popular than the industry-
sponsored response Fracknation, directed by Irish journalist Phelim McAleer, whose most popular
YouTube clip garnered approximately 100,000 views. The images of homeowners setting their tap
water on fire had become a recurring, biased reference to explain hydraulic fracturing and its
possible environmental impacts.
The grassroots communications tactics that the activists employ, however, are not the only
cause for public skepticism toward the oil and gas industry. The historical mismanagement of
crises, going back to 1989’s Exxon Valdez running aground, but also as recently as BP’s 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, have fueled public perception that the industry is either unprepared
or unwilling to deal with the impacts of its activities. The communicational conservatism of its
executives, denying responsibility at first and admitting guilt only after public and governmental
pressure – but never without reluctance – has also fed the collective imagination that oil and gas
is a careless industry.
119
Rusi Jaspal, Andrew Turner, and Brigitte Nerlich, 505.
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The perceived arrogance of representatives is yet another factor that distances the industry
and its causes from the average American. This paper has shown at least one case, when James
Grey, chief operating officer of Triana Energy, dismissed concerns from the New York Times as it
revealed companies’ questionable disposal of wastewater in Pennsylvania. But there are others,
such as Rolling Stone’s profile of billionaire Aubrey McClendon, founder and former owner of
Chesapeake Energy – a company that once was the country’s largest natural gas producer – which
painted a picture of an apathetic playboy who defended environmental causes only for personal
gain. The money-hungry image and the industry’s apparent insensitivity over time have corroded
its reputation and shattered its credibility.
This reality points to a nearly impossible short-term communications goal for the industry:
build trust among stakeholders. Trust protects reputation and alleviates the task of speaking to
audiences. Edelman, the world's largest independently owned public relations firm, annually
surveys leaders in its “Trust Barometer” and the numbers are clear
120
: when an industry or
company is distrusted, most people will believe negative information after hearing it only once.
Therefore, it is safe to assume that American don’t need much convincing to believe that oil and
gas companies are hiding the environmental impacts of their projects or only have their self-
interest in mind.
Edelman’s results also showed that, in general, people need to hear something about a
specific industry or company up to five times before they believe that the information is likely to
be true. In today’s saturated media environment, with online users being constantly bombarded by
millions of messages, this is even harder. That level of impact can only be achieved with interesting
and engaging content.
120
“2011 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive Summary,” accessed December 29, 2015,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47515988/2011-Edelman-Trust-Barometer-Executive-Summary.
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Naturally, considering efficacy, the trade associations’ focus on social media should be on
industry supporters and the provision of information subsidies to those looking for material that’ll
help them form an opinion. Nevertheless, even though people with strong attitudes about
“fracking” tend to resist persuasion attempts by selecting channels that conform to their pre-
existing beliefs, the three most popular social media channels – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
– seem to be a reduced-risk opportunity to try to speak to them too.
For this interaction to happen in the best possible way for the industry and the trade
associations, independently of the audience that is addressed, the strategy requires an urgent
overhaul. The reactive, defensive line that characterizes most conservative approaches has to be
replaced. The lack of explanation, much aligned with a “no comment” response, is often perceived
as an assumption of guilt. The industry’s fear of litigation stemming from media positioning should
be switched for more transparent communication based on storytelling. As previously seen in this
paper, in the void of answers coming from the industry’s failure to address the issues drives people
towards the oppositions’ narrative of blame.
The educational approach that is currently being employed by the trade associations is the
most effective way to reach audiences. The need for social media users to be impacted by messages
several times before they trust them, however, reiterates the importance of having entertaining
content as an integral part of the editorial calendar.
Partnering with credible third-parties, such as university researchers, in this case, is a
double positive. This way the industry can sponsor analyses that will contribute to make drilling
safer for all stakeholders and it can also benefit from scientists’ expertise in both gathering
unbiased information and translating it to lay audiences. It also opens doors to the trade
associations to tap highly-regarded experts from various fields, ranging from economics to
Fierro Barreiro 76
environmental studies. Then, all that is left is for the trade associations to consider the social media
platforms’ best practices and identify the most engaging way of promoting that content.
The following are the author’s recommendations to oil and gas trade associations better
engage with their online audiences:
Support for shale development usually comes from older men, those who hold a
bachelor's degree or higher, are politically conservative, watch TV news more than
once a week, and associate the “fracking” process with positive economic or energy
supply outcomes. Using demographic data from the trade associations’ social media
channels to add to the demographic breakdown, communicators can define their exact
audience and tailor messages to them, creating an emotional connection, increasing the
odds of it getting shared and building credibility over digital word of mouth.
Tap supporters to create third-party content that highlights the favorable impacts of
shale development. Scientists can show meaningful, positive impacts based on
unbiased data and leaseholders can share the social side of how life has changed for the
better in the areas where exploration is happening. Transparency and disclosure of
cases in which the trade associations’ were directly involved, be it with financial or
creative support, is paramount to maintaining both parties’ reputations.
When engaging with activists, trade associations must recognize their core values,
disassociating their identity from their belief. That’ll open a window of opportunity to
then argue the position – economic benefits and reducing environmental footprint
through research – via a more emotional narrative structure.
These three overarching approaches can be broken down into a multitude of tactics,
especially, as we’ve seen, as each social media has its own format. The rapid evolution of
Fierro Barreiro 77
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube push the limits of communicators to stay up-to-date with the most
engaging ways of addressing their audiences. For now, these are the tactics that, guided by the
abovementioned strategies, could be most efficient for the oil and gas trade associations in their
effort to generate more awareness and enhanced positive recall for the industry:
Use shale development to talk about tight oil and gas exploration, hydraulic fracturing,
or similar terms in reference to the overall process of onshore drilling, especially in a
positive context. Avoid “fracking” because of its loaded context and extensive activist
use with negative connotations.
Create unbiased, interesting and entertaining content that is meaningful to people
looking for information to form an opinion and to shale development supporters.
Engaging content that is also appealing to the general audience may prove successful
in reaching multiple stakeholders, especially since today’s polarized media landscape
makes it difficult to significantly impact the opposition.
More than half of Americans have heard nothing or very little about “fracking.” Those
who live in areas not directly affected by shale development know even less. Therefore,
directing messages according to geographical location can prove highly effective,
especially to build long-lasting relationships.
Consider the best practices for each social media platform before posting. Research
has shown the most effective approach to post to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Small details, like including relevant pictures and hashtags, can increase engagement
and shareability of a post.
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“Own” a hashtag related to shale development by constantly tagging posts with related
content. Considering the most frequent hashtags related to “fracking,” it’s clear that the
trade associations have space to target one of the most used or start one of their own.
It’s important to note that there is no guaranteed method to succeed in communications,
especially on a rapidly evolving setting like social media. Therefore, these guidelines are merely
general recommendations based on “fracking” and communications research, coupled with best
practices. This way, trade associations like EID and NTNG can begin to effectively utilize online
platforms to highlight the positive economic impacts of shale development, shape public opinion
in favor of hydraulic fracturing and ultimately improve the industry’s reputation.
Fierro Barreiro 79
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Fierro Barreiro, Matheus
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Core Title
Hydraulic fracturing and social media: getting the “fracking” message across
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
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Strategic Public Relations
Publication Date
04/12/2016
Defense Date
04/09/2016
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Tag
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