Energy Policy Blog

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently published a series of reports assessing how rapid growth in U.S., and possibly global, oil and gas production from shales may impact various net-energy exporting or importing countries.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

ICE 2014 marks the first time an AAPG international conference will be held in Istanbul – but that’s not the only new dynamic being offered. This meeting also marks the first time the APPEX Regional meeting will be held in conjunction with an ICE.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

At the start of the now-phenomenal shale play bonanza, the thinking in general was that the rocks were homogeneous across an area of interest. Then reality set in as the shale E&P players came to realize via the drill bit that heterogeneity rules, and homogeneity and uniformity are not even bit players in the big picture.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Bigger, bolder and better is what organizers are planning for this year’s Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC).

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Given all the success stories, it’s intriguing to realize these plays are still far from being a known – variability is indigenous. The players talk about “cracking the code,” but the “code” can differ even between adjacent wells.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The current, free-flowing supply of hydrocarbons has brought a sigh of relief to many who have been scrambling to find alternatives to dwindling supplies of conventional fossil fuels. But while some estimate the shale energy boom has handed the nation at least four decades of energy security, this is not a time to rest easy, said past AAPG president Scott Tinker, the director of the Bureau of Economic Geology and state geologist of Texas

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

This year, URTeC has added an enhanced preview of “Coming Attractions.” In addition to looking at established plays, URTeC will provide significant information about emerging unconventional resource possibilities in North America and around the world.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Wiki Article

An oil shale is defined as a fine-grained sedimentary rock that contains a high proportion of endogenous organic matter (kerogen) mostly insoluble in ordinary petroleum solvents, from which substantial amounts of synthetic oil and/or gas can be extracted by heating it to a sufficiently high temperature, a process called retorting. Oil shales have a low calorific value and high ash and mineral content.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

AAPG member Zell Peterman, U.S. Geological Survey scientist emeritus, is busy with colleagues examining Williston Basin Bakken formation water and the role of shale filtration.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

As the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Marcellus and other shale plays make national news, the Cane Creek reservoir might be the dark horse poised to emerge as another major shale play. 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

Production from unconventional petroleum reservoirs includes petroleum from shale, coal, tight-sand and oil-sand. These reservoirs contain enormous quantities of oil and natural gas but pose a technology challenge to both geoscientists and engineers to produce economically on a commercial scale. These reservoirs store large volumes and are widely distributed at different stratigraphic levels and basin types, offering long-term potential for energy supply. Most of these reservoirs are low permeability and porosity that need enhancement with hydraulic fracture stimulation to maximize fluid drainage. Production from these reservoirs is increasing with continued advancement in geological characterization techniques and technology for well drilling, logging, and completion with drainage enhancement. Currently, Australia, Argentina, Canada, Egypt, USA, and Venezuela are producing natural gas from low permeability reservoirs: tight-sand, shale, and coal (CBM). Canada, Russia, USA, and Venezuela are producing heavy oil from oilsand. USA is leading the development of techniques for exploring, and technology for exploiting unconventional gas resources, which can help to develop potential gas-bearing shales of Thailand. The main focus is on source-reservoir-seal shale petroleum plays. In these tight rocks petroleum resides in the micro-pores as well as adsorbed on and in the organics. Shale has very low matrix permeability (nano-darcies) and has highly layered formations with differences in vertical and horizontal properties, vertically non-homogeneous and horizontally anisotropic with complicate natural fractures. Understanding the rocks is critical in selecting fluid drainage enhancement mechanisms; rock properties such as where shale is clay or silica rich, clay types and maturation , kerogen type and maturation, permeability, porosity, and saturation. Most of these plays require horizontal development with large numbers of wells that require an understanding of formation structure, setting and reservoir character and its lateral extension. The quality of shale-gas resources depend on thickness of net pay (>100 m), adequate porosity (>2%), high reservoir pressure (ideally overpressure), high thermal maturity (>1.5% Ro), high organic richness (>2% TOC), low in clay (<50%), high in brittle minerals (quartz, carbonates, feldspars), and favourable in-situ stress. During the past decade, unconventional shale and tight-sand gas plays have become an important supply of natural gas in the US, and now in shale oil as well. As a consequence, interest to assess and explore these plays is rapidly spreading worldwide. The high production potential of shale petroleum resources has contributed to a comparably favourable outlook for increased future petroleum supplies globally. Application of 2D and 3D seismic for defining reservoirs and micro seismic for monitoring fracturing, measuring rock properties downhole (borehole imaging) and in laboratory (mineralogy, porosity, permeability), horizontal drilling (downhole GPS), and hydraulic fracture stimulation (cross-linked gel, slick-water, nitrogen or nitrogen foam) is key in improving production from these huge resources with low productivity factors.

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