And the U.S. is not alone in trying to maximize oil and gas production. Despite the financial failures of the U.S. fracking industry, international efforts to duplicate the American fracking story are ramping up across the globe.
The CEO of Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco recently dismissed the idea that global demand for oil will decrease anytime soon and urged the oil industry to “push back on exaggerated theories like peak oil demand.”
Khalid al Falih, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, told the Financial Times, “Going forward the world is going to be Saudi Aramco’s playground.” But not if other countries frack there first.
China Expanding Fracking Efforts, Testing New Technology
Cyprus and ExxonMobil on Thursday announced a gas find estimated between 5-8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in an offshore field inside the island’s exclusive economic zone.
The discovery was made in the Glafcos (Glaucus) 1 well in Block 10 of the EEZ.
“Based on preliminary interpretation of the well data, the discovery could represent an in-place natural gas resource of approximately 5 trillion to 8 trillion cubic feet (142 billion to 227 billion cubic metres). Further analysis in the coming months will be required to better determine the resource potential,” the company said in a statement.
Scientists have developed an ‘energy rod’ that can fire multiple shock waves to frack sedimentary rock at depths of up to 3.5km
China has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas but current mining technology makes most of it inaccessible
China is planning to apply the same technology used to detonate a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima during the second world war to access its massive shale gas reserves in Sichuan province. While success would mean a giant leap forward not only for the industry but also Beijing’s energy self-sufficiency ambitions, some observers are concerned about the potential risk of widespread drilling for the fuel in a region known for its devastating earthquakes.
Despite being home to the largest reserves of shale gas on the planet – about 31.6 trillion cubic metres according to 2015 figures from the US Energy Information Administration, or twice as much as the United States and Australia combined – China is the world’s biggest importer of natural gas, with about 40 per cent of its annual requirement coming from overseas.
Du gaz et du pétrole de schiste sont découverts à profusion dans le monde, notamment aux États-Unis. Qui en parle dans nos grands media ? Serait-ce politiquement incorrect de l’évoquer ?
LE SUCCÈS DU PARI DU GAZ ET DU PÉTROLE DE SCHISTE
Le Texas aux États-Unis regorge de pétrole et de gaz de schiste au point que les gazoducs existants sont saturés ! Le gaz doit même être « torché » ou « éventé ».
En attendant la mise en service de nouvelles capacités de transport, la production doit être réduite faute de pouvoir exporter les quantités extraites. La production de pétrole de schiste doit aussi être réduite en parallèle car il est extrait avec le gaz (et vice-versa).
Des projets sont en développement pour évacuer le gaz vers le Golfe du Mexique pour le liquéfier (GPL) et pouvoir ainsi l’exporter par bateau méthanier.
PREMIER PRODUCTEUR DE PÉTROLE
Les États-Unis ont dépassé la Russie et l’Arabie Saoudite pour devenir le premier producteur de pétrole brut en 2018 a annoncé l’agence américaine de l’énergie (EIA).
Après avoir stagné autour de 6 millions de barils par jour (Mb/j) en moyenne de 1933 à 2013, la production a grimpé à 9,4 Mb/j en 2017, puis à 10,4 Mb/j en 2018, et elle passera à 11,5 Mb/j 2019.
La surabondance de gaz de schiste associé à l’extraction du pétrole de schiste a fait chuter les prix au terminal gazier à l’ouest du Texas jusqu’à 1 dollar par million d’unité thermique britannique (dollar/MM-Btu), alors qu’il vaut 13 à 14 dollars/MM-Btu sur le marché européen.
The Appalachian Basin is driving growth of record-shattering U.S. natural gas production, which in turn has helped spur more than $25 billion in natural gas electricity generation investment in the region. In fact, there are 29 new 475-megawatt (MW) or greater natural gas-fired power plants that are in various stages of permitting, under construction or have recently become operational in Ohio (10), Pennsylvania (16) and West Virginia (3), representing more than 26,000 MW of added electric capacity, more than 17,000 jobs during construction and incredible emissions reductions in the electricity sector.
Stronger oil and natural gas prices combined with continuing development of shales and low permeability formations drove producers of crude oil and natural gas in the United States to report new all-time record levels of proved reserves for both fuels in 2017. Total U.S. oil reserves in 2017 exceeded a brief, one-year, 47-year-old record, highlighting the importance of crude oil development in shales and low permeability plays, mainly in the Southwest. The new record for natural gas extends a longer-term trend of development, mainly in shale plays in the Northeast. Both U.S. proved reserves of crude oil and natural gas are approximately double their levels from a decade ago. These new proved reserves records were established in 2017 despite production of crude oil at levels not seen since 1972, and record natural gas production.
A few news items from The Shale Gas News, by Bill desRosiers of Cabot Oil & Gas. The main paragraphs below are adapted from desRosiers, but I’ve added some detail. Things are looking very good for the U.S. oil, gas and coal industries.
U.S. crude oil and natural gas production increased in 2017, with fewer wells. The total number of wells producing crude oil and natural gas in the United States fell to 991,000 in 2017, down from a peak of 1,039,000 wells in 2014. This recent decline in the number of wells reflects advances in technology and drilling techniques. EIA’s updated U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Wells by Production Rate report shows how daily production rates of individual wells contributed to U.S. total crude oil and natural gas production in 2017.
The well efficiency gains, in part, reflect an increase in the proportion of horizontal wells. The number of vertical wells decreased from 940,000 in 2014 to 864,000 in 2017. The number of horizontal wells increased from 99,000 in 2014 to 127,000 in 2017, an increase of 28%. This is important since only one percent of vertical wells produce 100 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) or more, but 30% of horizontal wells do. Typically, a horizontal well costs about twice as much as a vertical well to the same reservoir.
U.S. oil production grew from 10 million BOPD to 11 million BOPD between December 2017 and July 2018. Over the same period natural gas production grew from 97 BCF (billion cubic feet) to 100 BCF. Figures 1, 2, and 3 show the total number of wells drilled and the total oil and natural gas production.
Popular accounts of shale oil and gas reservoirs are often riddled with errors and, even when technically correct, often misleading. As a shale petrophysicist, retired from Devon Energy, I thought I would try and explain, in a non-technical way, how these reservoirs work and why they have been so successful.
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Figure 1. Major shale oil and gas plays in the United States. Source EIA.
by Liam Denning, November 1, 2018 in BloomberOpinion
The contrast between the success of the U.S. oil and gas industry and unpopularity in the stock market grows ever starker.
The Energy Information Administration released revised monthly figures for U.S. oil production on Thursday. The headline is that production is up — way, way up. It reached 11.35 million barrels a day in August, fully 2.1 million barrels a day higher than a year before. That’s almost like adding a whole new Mexico in the space of 12 months.
LONDON (Reuters) – Cuadrilla extracted its first shale gas from its site in northwest England, it said on Friday, after it began fracking operations there just over two weeks ago.
Cuadrilla said the gas flows were small but coming at such an early stage of the project were evidence of the potential of the site.
“This is a good early indication of the gas potential that we have long talked about,” Cuadrilla Chief Executive Francis Egan said in an emailed statement.
The briefing, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, focuses on the output of the BBC and the Guardian, and outlines many examples of biased coverage.
However, it wasn’t always this way, as author Andrew Montford explains:
“When shale gas first came on the scene, coverage was very positive: gas was seen as a low-carbon alternative to coal. It was only when it looked as though it would price renewables out of the market that the scare stories and bias began”.
Unconventional oil and gas exploration in the United States has experienced a period of rapid growth, followed by several years of limited production due to falling and low natural gas and oil prices. Throughout this transition, the water use for hydraulic fracturing and wastewater production in major shale gas and oil production regions has increased; from 2011 to 2016, the water use per well increased up to 770%, while flowback and produced water volumes generated within the first year of production increased up to 1440%. The water-use intensity (that is, normalized to the energy production) increased ubiquitously in all U.S. shale basins during this transition period. The steady increase of the water footprint of hydraulic fracturing with time implies that future unconventional oil and gas operations will require larger volumes of water for hydraulic fracturing, which will result in larger produced oil and gas wastewater volumes.
India’s cabinet approved on Wednesday a policy to allow companies to explore and exploit unconventional oil and gas resources such as shale oil and gas and coalbed methane under the existing production sharing contracts, as it aims to reduce its dependency on energy imports.
To reduce emissions and provide affordable electricity, the world needs to burn more fossil fuels, not less.
That’s the message being delivered by the world’s biggest energy companies at the World Gas Conference in Washington this week, where they championed natural gas as the fuel of the future, rather than one that simply bridges the gap toward renewables. …
China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the largest state-owned producer of oil and natural gas in the country, reportedly plans to nearly double natural gas production from shale sources this year and wants a five-fold increase in such production by 2020.
CNPC said it plans to produce 5.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) (197.8 Bcf) of natural gas from unconventional sources in southwestern Sichuan province in 2018, according to a report Tuesday by Caixin Media Co. Ltd., a Beijing-based news service. The company reportedly plans to drill more than 330 new wells targeting the Sichuan Basin in 2018, and wants to have more than 820 shale gas wells in operation by 2020, with total annual production of 15 bcm (529.7 Bcf). …
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Natural gas production from U.S. shale fields can keep growing for decades, giving Washington a powerful diplomatic tool to counter the geopolitical influence of other energy exporters such as Russia, industry executives and government officials said at a conference here.
Already the world’s largest gas producer, the United States can expand shale gas output another 60 percent in the coming decades, according to at least one estimate. So far, liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been spared from retaliatory tariffs in U.S. President Donald Trump’s intensifying trade conflicts with China and other countries. …
While U.S. drillers deploy more rigs than any time since 2015 amid a fracking surge in the Permian Basin, companies including ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Equinor ASA have sold operations or pulled out of Canada’s oil sands, the world’s third largest source of crude reserves.
The well has been drilled through the Lower Bowland shale at a depth of approximately 2,700m (8,860 ft) below ground and extends laterally 800m (2,620 ft).
Francis Egan, chief executive officer of Cuadrilla, said the government’s recent announcement underlined the “national importance of shale gas”.
“We are now very close to demonstrating that Lancashire shale gas can be commercially developed in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.”
The firm said drilling on a second horizontal shale gas exploration well at the site is due to be complete soon when it will lodge a second fracking application.
It said it expects to start fracking both wells later this year.
There is a strong possibility that Poland will build a floating Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Gdańsk, according to Fred H. Hutchison, who says “a lot of gas” can come to Central European markets this way.
Fred H. Hutchison is president and CEO of LNG Allies, an industry association working to expedite and maximise US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In Bratislava, Hutchinson gave a speech at the Energy Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce.
Imports of natural gas from Russia have increased over the years and represented 34% of EU’s supply in 2016 according to ACER. Given the cheap price of Russian gas, do you see a window of opportunity for Amercian LNG on the European market?
The Permian shale play is all about setting records. Now, the region may even become the world’s largest oil patch over the next decade.
Output in the basin is forecast to reach 3.18 million barrels a day in May, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s the highest since the agency began compiling records in 2007. By 2023, the basin may produce 4 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is currently the world’s biggest oil field, with capacity of 5.8 million barrels a day, according to a 2017 EIA report.
Utica Midstream conference gives update on Utica Shale production and development.
NORTH CANTON Ohio has produced more natural gas than it uses since early 2015. Driven by prolific Utica Shale wells, the state produced a record 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas last year.
Much of the regional economic development around that production has been in the form of pipelines and processing facilities.
Two interstate natural gas pipelines — Energy Transfer’s Rover project and the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline — cross Stark and neighboring counties.
As the U.K. celebrates its final year as part of the European Union, it is standing on the brink of a major boost to its economy and prosperity as it awaits the first economic benefit from its rich oil and gas shales (…)
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
