Fracking faults

After reading Patrick Lowry's opinion on hydraulic fracting, I was appalled as well as extremely disappointed. I'm retired from a 50-year local small independent oil production company.

We're regulated by the watchdog branch of government called the KCC, an everlasting, cost-draining and profit-prohibitive group, which watches our every move. We comply with the rules and regs.

I've been "fracking" oil wells, as the supervisor, for as long as I can remember. Sure, things go wrong, break down or human error causes the job to fail. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover more oil for Kansas. And will continue to do so. That's the oil business.

The black eye Mr. Lowry gave us in his article on "fracking" shows he did no homework, research or didn't take into account the millions and millions we give to farmers and landowners who allow us to drill. His lack of insight, procedure, execution and results of this process, results in my condemnation of all of his opinions on oil.

We execute the "fracking" under "tools" (plugs and packers). The high pressure we create with the extreme flow rate (20 to 50 bbl/min) is 3,500 to 4,000 feet under the surface of the ground. I've never seen these factors surface. This process often increases the oil produced by 10 times. It fails 70 percent to 80 percent of the time, which then results in plugging the well.

With those facts outlined here, I invite Mr. Lowry to meet with me or anyone in Kansas oil to a "sit-down talk" about our many efforts.

Paul D. Nixon

Hays