Big Shale Technology

Shale oil engineer Oscar Portillo spends his days drilling as many as five wells at once— without ever setting foot on a rig.

Part of a team working to cut the cost of drilling a new shale well by a third, Portillo works from a Royal Dutch Shell Plc office in suburban Houston, his eyes darting among 13 monitors flashing data on speed, temperature and other metrics as he helps control rigs more than 805 km (500 miles) away in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oil field.

For the last decade, smaller oil companies have led the way in shale technology, slashing costs by as much as half with breakthroughs such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking that turned the United States into the world’s fastest-growing energy exporter.

Now, oil majors that were slow to seize on shale are seeking further efficiencies by adapting technologies for highly automated offshore operations to shale and pursuing advances in digitalization that have reshaped industries from auto manufacturing to retail.

If they are successful, the U.S. oil industry’s ability to bring more wells to production at lower cost could amp up future output and company profits. The firms could also frustrate the ongoing effort by OPEC to drain a global oil glut.

“We’re bringing science into the art of drilling wells,” Portillo said.

The technological push comes amid worries that U.S. shale gains are slowing as investors press for higher financial returns. Many investors want producers to restrain spending and focus on generating higher returns, not volume, prompting some to pull back on drilling.

Production at a majority of publicly traded shale producers rose just 1.3%over the first three quarters this year, according to Morgan Stanley. But many U.S. shale producers vowed during third-quarter earnings disclosures to deliver higher returns through technology, with many forecasting aggressive output hikes into 2018.

Chevron Corp. is using drones equipped with thermal imaging to detect leaks in oil tanks and pipelines across its shale fields, avoiding traditional ground inspections and lengthy shutdowns.

Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips—the largest U.S. independent oil and gas producer—sees ample opportunity to boost both profits and output. ConocoPhillips also oversees remote drilling operations in a similar way to Shell.

“The people that don’t have shale in their portfolios don’t understand it, frankly,” Lance said in an interview. “They think it’s going to go away quickly because of the high decline rates, or that the resource is not nearly that substantial. They’re wrong on both counts.”

Shell, in an initiative called “iShale,” has marshaled technology from a dozen oilfield suppliers, including devices from subsea specialist TechnipFMC Plc that separate fracking sand from oil and well-control software from Emerson Electric Co., to bring more automation and data analysis to shale operations.

One idea borrowed from deepwater projects is using sensors to automatically adjust well flows and control separators that divvy natural gas, oil and water. Today, these subsea systems are expensive because they are built to operate at the extreme pressures and temperatures found miles under the ocean's surface.

Shell’s initiative aims to create cheaper versions for onshore production by incorporating low-cost sensors similar to those in Apple Inc.’s Watch, eliminating the need for workers to visit thousands of shale drilling rigs to read gauges and manually adjust valves. Shell envisions shale wells that predict when parts are near mechanical failure and schedule repairs automatically.

By next year, the producer wants to begin remote fracking of wells, putting workers in one place to oversee several projects. It also would add solar panels and more powerful batteries to well sites to reduce electricity and diesel costs.

Oil firms currently spend about $5.9 million to drill a new shale well, according to consultancy Rystad Energy. Shell expects to chop that cost to less than $4 million apiece by the end of the decade.

“There is still very little automation,” said Amir Gerges, head of Shell's Permian operations. “We haven’t scratched the surface.”

Technology, Geology

Much of the new technology is focused on where rather than how to drill.

“There is no amount of technology that can improve bad geology,” said Mark Papa, CEO of shale producer Centennial Resource Development Inc.

Anadarko Petroleum, Statoil and others are using DNA sequencing to pinpoint high potential areas, collecting DNA from microbes in oil to search for the same DNA in rock samples. ConocoPhillip’s MRI techniques also borrow from medical advances.

ConocoPhillips next year will start using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to analyze Permian rock samples and find the best drilling locations, a technique the company first developed for its Alaskan offshore operations.

EOG Resources Inc. last year began using a detailed analysis of the oil quality of its fields. The analysis, designed by Houston start-up Premier Oilfield Laboratories, helps to speed decisions on fracking locations and avoid less productive sites.

Premier has reduced the time needed to analyze seismic data to find oil reserves from days or weeks to seconds. Such efficiencies serve two purposes, said Nathan Ganser, Premier’s director of geochemical services.

“It’s not only removing costs thatare superfluous,” he said. “It’s boosting production.”

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CHINA ENERGY INVEST 84 BILLION DOLLARS IN AMERICAN SHALE GAS

In the framework of all the economic agreements signed between USA and China on a recent visit to Beijing by US President Donald Trump for a total of $ 250 billion, the most 'heavy' in terms of value, with 84 billion concerning natural gas.

According to reports from Reuters, China Energy  Investment has signed a Memorandum of Understunding (MoU) for $ 83.7 billion in 20 years of investment by the Chinese state corporation in West Virginia in relation to projects energetic, chemical, and gas shale.

Trump's promise is also the first international agreement signed by China Energy, which was only recently formed through the merger of China Shenhua Group, China's leading coal-fired power producer, and China Guodian Corp., one of the top 5 energy utilities of the country. China Energy employs about 326,000 employees alone, more than four times the entire workforce involved in the coal-fired power industry in the United States, and the MoU in question witnesses its willingness to reduce the coal's weight in the economy in favor of greater use of other resources, such as natural gas.

According to the West Virginia State Department of Commerce, Reuters quoted Chine Enery as the largest investor of nearly $ 84 billion, will cover several projects in various fields: electricity generation, chemical production, manufacturing and LNG storage in underground.

The value of this single agreement exceeds the full GDP of West Virginia alone, which in 2016 amounted to $ 73.4 billion.

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SHALE GAS What is that ?

The Revolution of Resources and Efficiency

The growth of our Company over the last few centuries has been supported by the availability of easy-to-find resources in large quantities. We had to nourish, heat up, build our inventions and machines, and grow a growing and demanding population. Beyond the DISTRIBUTION of this abundant mess, which is also a matter of paramount importance, we can say that it could have grown substantially without limitation.

Towards the end of the last century, however, the first concerns about the actual sustainability of this growth rate began to emerge, first on the front of the availability of the main sources of energy we were using and subsequently with reference to (almost) all other raw materials, agricultural and water products.

We began to question how to use new sources and resources, how to preserve and preserve existing ones, and the so-called ' efficiency revolution ' has begun. The themes of sustainability characterize the ethical nucleus, but it concerns the use of the territory and the space in which we live, that of resources, energy, and water.

In the particular case of traditional energy sources, the increase in demand and their limited availability has generated a significant increase in price, with two effects: an impetus to efficiency, and we talked about it, and an impetus to look for new fields or new sources.

The last twenty years have seen enormous development of research and extraction techniques. New deposits have been found but have also been attempted to extract oil and gas from where, to date, it had not been possible. In these pages we will concentrate on unconventional search techniques, so defined to distinguish them from those that are (and continue to be) used in extraction.

We will mainly talk about unconventional gas , but we must remember that there is also an oil unconventional (non-conventional oil).

Shale gas

The impetuous development of unconventional gas has been possible thanks to a very special technological evolution in extraction techniques.

The fracking ( hydraulic fracking, or simply fracking) has begun to spread in the fifties of the last century. In practice, a drilling device is combined with a pressurized water injection device that causes microfracturing in the rock or very well-sanded sand banks through which the gas content ( METHANE ) or oil is released and re-emerges with the reflux of the " injected water.

It is not just water: in relation to the different geological features of the GIACIMENTO and the nature of the substance to be extracted, specific additives are added to the know-how of the extractor. The water that flows is rich (in addition to oil and gas), also of contents derived from the microfractured geological matrix, salt and additives just mentioned.

The great technological innovation of the last ten to fifteen years has been sub-horizontal directional perforation. Born for microtunneling, the construction of cable or polyphony wires for technological use, was soon perfected to adapt it to the mining industry.

Gas-rich shingles often have a limited thickness and a very large surface area, and suborange drilling allows them to be followed for lengthwise development to allow the extraction of important quantities of gas and oil. This is the case of gas from, or shale gas , or shale gas , just because of the spontaneous nature of the geological formations that hold it imprisoned. Gas can also be contained in very compact sand deposits (it is referred to as tigh sand gas) or in the body of coal deposits (it is referred to as coal seam methane or coalbed methane). The image makes the idea of ​​the complex variety of deposits that today is made possible to exploit.

Thanks to this evolution, gas extraction with unconventional systems becomes possible at competitive prices compared to the current high price of traditional resources (whose growth was, as we have seen, determined by limited availability and high demand).

Think of the formation known as  "Marcellus Shale" , one of the largest non-CONVENTION GAS fields in the world that covers six US states in the northeast and therefore needs more drilling to gain access to gas. According to the US Department of Energy, a 2009 report on shale gas development estimates that 3,800,000 gallons (15,200,000 liters) of water are needed for fracturing in a single well, with an additional 80,000 gallons for drilling.

The next figure outlines all the extraction process with the new techniques.

 The effects on the production equilibrium

We look at the map. The DISTRIBUTION of the estimated (and presumed) deposits varies greatly with extraction geography than that used by conventional gas and oil. Countries such as the USA, Argentina, Poland, and South Africa could soon become exporters of fossil sources rather than importers, making probably the same fossilized and least expensive fossil sources.

The same problem, which seemed so languid towards the end of the last century, that the fact that it was to reach the peak in oil production, assumes a relative importance. So how could the role and weight of countries that are currently producing gas and oil, which is essentially concentrated in the Middle East, change, a whole season of balance on the planet's layout would seem to come to the front.

In terms of relative importance of shale gas production compared to traditional sources, the most reliable estimates and ratings were made in the United States where extraction has begun for some time and exploration has provided the POTENTIAL of production. The picture below shows very well the expectations: shale gas is starting to become the first energy source for the US. Similar scenarios have been developed for Australia while the European country ahead in this regard is the United Kingdom.

What are the critical aspects

If the benefits of greater availability of energy sources are quite obvious, it is also worth discussing the critical aspects that arise from the exploitation of these particular fields.

The most delicate aspects are:

• Hydraulic fracturing, and in particular water injecting into the subsoil, can lead to interference with the fence from which communities draw for domestic, irrigation or industrial uses.
• 'Chasing' the deposits throughout their extension may have a detrimental effect on the environment and the ecosystems involved.
• A negligible amount of gas is lost in the atmosphere, and METHANE is 24 times more effective than CO2 in generating the GREEN EFFECT .
• Water is not an inexhaustible resource, and only 2.5% of the existing water is non-salty water, and extraction with this mode requires a lot of it and produces a lot of pollution.

Each point would deserve a long discussion, but we will review them briefly, leaving some more detail in the water theme.

The exploitation of a well of this kind reaches depths of hundreds of meters, normally well below the superficial foothills that feed our aqueducts. However, the regulations have become very sensitive in this respect and require accurate hydrogeological and basin analysis studies before authorizing the exploitation of deposits, and in particular those involving the use of fracking techniques.

Similarly, in-depth environmental impact studies and attentive assessments of the effects on local ecosystems have become an inevitable prerequisite for extractive activities. Especially as regards the shale gas, which, as seen from the map above, is present in very large and often significantly inhabited areas, when not even of naturalistic value.

The issue of SERRA EFFECT is responding not only to the extraction of shale gas but also conventional gas. Mining techniques, and especially transport, have been made more accurate and sophisticated, although improvements continue to be made and are aimed at significantly reducing the problem.

Water and gas: unconventional resources?

The future of oil and gas is intimately tied to that of water. It is around this precious resource that plays the development of the industry and, above all, of new sources of energy such as GAS NON CONVENTIONAL whose geological peculiarities make indispensable a great water expense in drilling and extraction.

While we are witnessing the increasingly apparent impact of climate change on production cycles and, on the other, the growing scarcity of water resources, we are experiencing an incredibly energetic era, where hope lies in new sources of energy. We think of the discovery of large  shale gas fields in countries such as UK, Poland and Ukraine: global attention towards this source of energy is very high today. 

The issues related to the availability and treatment of production waters are a topic that has affected the industry since the times of the West's Gold Mines and, incidentally, it is precisely when it comes to legislation on the subject. So much so that the evolution of environmental legislation in the oil and gas sector leads some US States to issue mining and production permits only in areas where water availability or supply is proven, provided that it does not escape other priority areas such as the residential and agricultural sectors. No water, no oil, then.

However, although oil extraction and production continue to pose challenges in terms of water use (mainly by injection) and reclamation (separation of production water from hydrocarbons, recovery of crude oil from "return water" ", Water purification from saline concentration, re-use of water in the extraction process, etc.), water issues related to the extraction of non-CONVENTION GAS are obviously more complex.

In addition, while always using fracking, the quantity and quality of production water associated with conventional gases may change depending on the type of gas. In the case of coal seam gas, for example, the amount of production water is generally higher than that associated with shale gas; Their saline concentration is also higher and less stable, so treatment solutions are more complex than gas shale.

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Contamination Groundwater and Soil due to Fracking and Extraction Gas and Oil

How do you cope with this tremendous water needs and concerns about contamination of groundwater and soil due to fracking and extraction operations? World experts agree that water re-use and efficiency are the most appropriate way for the future of oil and gas. 

Water is critical in extractive techniques, and in particular in the case of shale gas because it requires a lot of it and should not be salted; in addition, it produces a lot of contaminants.

As we have said, they need accurate, thorough and extensive basin, hydrological and hydrogeological studies, in order to get a CONCESSION . In particular, it must be ensured that the volumes of water used do not deplete the water resource, damaging the ecosystem and the communities that inhabit it.

But it is in the face of polluted water management that regulations become even more demanding. The drilling wastewater contains the additives necessary for the 'facilitation' of the extractive activity, substances derived from perforated or fractured rock, oils, gases and salts.

Waste water management strategies are basically:

·        Re-injection of water, possibly pretreated, into parallel wells and subsequently sealed.

·         STORAGE in ponds / ponds and subsequent treatment and return to the hydraulic surface grid.

·        Re-use in extractive activities after pre-treatment.

·        Re-use after treatment for anthropic activities or community service (gray waters, ponds and ponds with landscaping or play facility).

In all cases, and depending on the regulatory requirements existing in the extraction area, the waters are treated more or less intensely. It's hardly a matter of technically too complex operations: the facilities and technologies needed are undoubtedly less sophisticated than those used to treat   wastewater from industrial activities.

However, the volumes involved are very important, and the production of water is a very important component of the extraction economy.

On the other hand, cases of synergies between the mining industry and local communities are becoming more frequent. It is worth mentioning a case related to the production of coal seam gas in Australia, a country rich in these deposits, where reflux treatment is carried out with an advanced combination of membrane processes (microfiltration, ion exchange, reverse osmosis) and where, thanks to the cooperation between mining companies, scientists and local authorities, the common goal was to make re-usable for both industrial and irrigation purposes almost 100% of these waters. In addition, it has been minimized extension of the basins STORAGE for production water, containing much the environmental impact on the area.

Blue gold is therefore a precious resource for oil and gas companies, as well as black gold (or blue, as it is today called gas) that they produce. Perhaps we had not been told yet, but the future of energy is written just in the water.

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CONVENTIONAL OIL

Definition Oil is a hydrocarbon formed over thousands of years from the decomposition of dead plants and organisms. Intense heat and pressure on this material triggers a reaction, which leads to the creation of oil

Conventional oil is a term used to describe oil that can be produced (extracted from the ground) using traditional drilling methods.  It is liquid at atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions, and therefore flows without additional stimulation.  This is opposed to unconventional oil, which requires advanced production methods due to its geologic formations and/or is heavy and does not flow on its own. 

You may have heard of these terms used to distinguish different types of oil:

​Light vs. Heavy - this refers to the density of oil and its ability to flow.  Lighter oil can be refined with minimal processing due to higher fractions of light hydrocarbons.

Sweet vs. Sour - this refers to the sulphur content of the oil, sulphur must be removed prior to refining.  When oil has sulphur greater than 0.5% it is referred to as "sour."

Because of these variations, oil quality is a spectrum and the distinction between conventional and unconventional is not always black and white. Generally, however, if traditional drilling techniques are used in the oil production it is considered conventional regardless of its physical properties.

Conventional oil is produced using drilling technologies that utilize the natural pressure of an underground reservoir.  Production of a conventional oil well has four main phases[2]:

Exploration: Geological exploration is a series of technologies that are used by geologists and geophysicists to predict the location and extent of underground oil reservoirs.

Drilling: Once a reservoir has been located with sufficient certainty, a drilling rig is used to bore a hole from the surface to the oil reservoir.  Piping is then inserted, allowing the oil to be brought to the surface.  Some of the oil in the reservoir will be produced using the natural pressure of the reservoir.  

Pumping: Gradually the pressure of the well will decrease as oil is produced. At this point a pump will be connected to allow the remaining oil to be extracted.

Abandoning: After all the economically viable oil has been extracted from the well, the well is filled with cement to prevent any hydrocarbons from escaping and a special cap is placed over it to protect the area[3].

Context

Conventional oil tends to be less expensive and complex to extract than unconventional oil due to the routine nature of the production techniques.  This oil is also the most valuable in global markets because it requires the smallest amount of processing prior to refining to create value-added products. Consequently, many of our global conventional oil supplies have already been extracted, limiting the availability of these source for future extraction[2].

Generally, drilling and well abandonment are well-understood and regulated processes but there are always risks with such industrial operations. In drilling, pressure must be regulated carefully to avoid accidents and immediate environmental impacts like land disturbance must be carefully monitored.  After abandonment, well leaks can occur if improper procedures were taken.  

As with all fossil fuel production, there are also concerns with greenhouse gas emissions from their combustion 

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Shale Gas

What is shale gas? If you regularly read the newspaper, watching the news or visit news websites, you may have heard of the term "shale gas". This term is more and more often in the news and politics is increasingly concerned with the gas. But what this gas is and where this gas in the Netherlands? More on this subject, refer to this article.

Shale Gas: a fossil fuel

Shale is a fossil fuel that occurs locally in the so-called oil shale. Oil shale is called shale, a rock that can be found underground. Many compare with shale gas, but shale gas is a very different fossil fuels. This is because these fossil fuels not call in connected or prevents fields, as is the case with natural gas, but rather occurs in porous rock beneath sealing layers. So here's shale gas trapped in tiny pores, making it very difficult to win this fuel.

Shale gas and natural gas: the main difference

Although shale gas and alike used as the fossil fuels above the ground, under the ground is a clear difference between the two gases. Thus, the drilling of natural gas a completely different process from drilling shale gas, because gas bubbles in contiguous or prevents fields and can be easily drilled. In shale gas, this is not the case, through which the gas with thousands of small drilling in a variety of directions out of the ground needs to be achieved. In short, natural gas is easy to pick up from the ground, but the extraction of shale gas is a complex and time consuming.

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