Travis Cody, left, and Scott Moore take a break from working on a natural gas drilling site in the Delta. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Drilling in the Delta

How does natural gas get from the ground to your stove top?

RIO VISTA — A white tower of criss-crossed steel and cables rises more than 100 feet in the air.

The Delta stretches along the horizon, with Mount Diablo dutifully overlooking the miles of waterways. The calm of the surrounding low-laying boggy fields is muffled by the rumble of the drilling rig as it bores more than a mile-and-a-half beneath the surface.

The mud-spattered linemen of Paul Graham Drilling in Rio Vista oversee the process of drilling through the crust of the Earth.

Their quarry: Natural gas. As the increasing cost and pollution of crude oil looms over the state and nation, more and more industries are turning toward natural gas as a resource for power. In fact, crude oil has been replaced with natural gas as the majority of the state's energy.

It's up to the drillers to find this precious resource.

And one of the nation's top areas for natural gas drilling is just west of Lodi, in Rio Vista.

There are plenty of companies that harness natural gas for resale purposes, such as Pacific Gas and Electric, but it's a resource not easily found or captured. It takes geologists, drillers and many others to find, store and channel natural gas to places such as industrial plants and your home.

North of Fresno and up into the Sacramento Valley, geologists and drillers alike will tell you there is no crude oil to be found. This land is strictly the domain of natural gas, technically called methane.

Kevin Graham

The gritty, complex job of finding this resource falls to firms like Paul Graham Drilling of Rio Vista, owned by Kevin Graham.

Natural gas piped into the home is pure methane. What is found in the wells is usually a mix of several different types of gas. Treatment, in most cases, occurs at the well to filter out all the impurities.

A family's hard-won legacy

Paul Graham began his company in 1968 with his wife Le Ann. They set up shop on Airport Road west of Rio Vista where the golden hills begin to roll toward Fairfield.

(Marc Lutz/News-Sentinel)

The Grahams continued to build their business, and in 1991, their only child, Kevin Graham, took over as the president of the company, running it with his wife, Jill.

Both Paul and Le Ann Graham passed away in 2000.

Since that time, the operation has expanded with new offices and a larger fabrication shop, allowing the company to build its rigs and derricks in-house. Kevin Graham, a sturdy man who has made it his mission to educate others on the benefits of natural gas, looks on the operation with quiet pride.

"Typically, 80 percent of what we drill for is natural gas," said Graham, "Forty percent is oil, and that's found south of Bakersfield."

Paul Graham Drilling also has clients in Texas, Oklahoma and Denver, but back in the Delta region one of their main clients, Rosetta Resources, has between 200 and 300 natural gas wells.

Bringing up the past

THUMP! Eight "thumper" trucks drop heavy weights. BOOM! It starts with a seismic wave. In a predetermined location thought to be ripe for natural gas extraction, the seismic energy generated by the weight dropping feeds data into a computer.

An artificial picture of the Earth's layers and bright spots are what come from that data. The bright spots are pockets of natural gas.

According to geologist Scott Hector of Paul Graham drilling, another method that is used for retrieving the data is setting off explosions with dynamite (this achieves the same desired effect as the reverberations caused by the trucks), although the thumpers are more commonly used.

There are a lot of those bright spots throughout the Delta. Without drilling contractors, the amount and commercial value of the natural gas pockets can't be determined.

"Nobody has found natural gas except a drilling contractor," Graham said.

But getting to that discovery is not always an easy. First, the proper rights and legal authority must be obtained. That can take much time and the snipping of red tape.

Getting down to business

Thar's gas in that thar earth. Maybe.

Once a location is selected, the hefty rig is brought in. The towering derrick is erected. Generators are put in place. Mud pumps are hooked up. And the doghouse (a portable trailer) is well-stocked with first aid supplies and water for the linemen.

(Marc Lutz/News-Sentinel)

The base of rig is designed to have minimal impact on the surrounding environment.

The drillstring — 30-foot pieces of steel pipe connected by threaded ends — is connected to the drill bit, and the drillstring in turn is connected to the hoisting equipment. A blowout preventer is set in place to keep pressure from wreaking havoc on the entire contraption.

Noise from the power generators and pumps fills the air. The drill assembly is fed through the "basement," the hole in the rig that helps determine the precise location for drilling.

Dirt, mud, rock are displaced. As the bit dives deeper, excess earth is filtered out through the mud pumps. Pipe is added to the drillstring as needed as new depths are achieved.

Though Paul Graham Drilling typically digs to depths of 8,000 feet, they are able to achieve 12,500 feet, Graham said.

Deeper and deeper, past clay and shale, the drill drives downward. Finally, pay dirt. Or, more appropriately, pay gas.

When the drill hits the pocket, the natural gas automatically seeks to escape upward to the well head.

After the amount of gas is determined, the well is fed into miles of pipeline owned by companies such as PG&E.

Meeting demand

As the demand for natural gas increases, people like Kevin Graham want to do away with the myths that it is harmful to the environment and dirty.

Contrary to popular belief, drilling for natural gas has little impact on the environment and no toxic chemicals are used in the process, Graham said.

According the American Petroleum Institute Web site (www.api.org), multidimensional maps created from the seismic tests allow for more precise drilling, minimizing the impact on the surrounding environment.

In its raw state, natural gas is invisible and has no odor (that rotten egg smell is added so that it can be detected easier).

"A lot of (the drilling) is going to be informed decision making based on the insights and experiences of the geologists," said Richard Ranger, the senior policy advisor with API. He adds that the tools available for exploration directly correlate to the size of the company and funds available. "Seventy to 80 percent of wells ... are drilled by the independent exploration companies."

Scott Wilson, the vice-president of Lodi Gas Storage said natural gas is a clean resource, and believes the price and demand of crude oil will only drive the consumption of natural gas to higher levels.

"I try to let people know about what we do. It may be controversial, but people need it," Graham said. He also believes that alternative avenues of power, such as nuclear, solar and wind, are a long way off, but need to be explored and developed.

Restrictions on oil fields in the U.S., such as one of the largest off the coast of Bodega Bay, keep natural gas production increasingly vital, said Graham.

PG&E provides natural gas to 4.2 million customers from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, with 28,485 of those residing in Lodi, according to company spokesperson Nicole Tam.

As of Friday natural gas cost $9.57 MMBtu (one million British thermal units — which are the standard units of measurement for heat) compared $6.56 for this time in 2007 and $2.95 on average in 2002, according to the Department of Energy. With an increase in demand, exploration will continue.

At the drilling site in the Delta, the workers keep the operation going 24 hours a day.

The sun hides its rays as it drops below Mount Diablo.

And the drill claws deeper and deeper into the earth.

Contact Business Editor Marc Lutz at marcl@lodinews.com.