Oil Shale

In the Fayetteville Shale area. This is the area in North Central Arkansas that sits above the Fayetteville Shale, a rock layer that contains natural gas. This mostly rural area has been turned into a busy industrial zone. Companies are also currently fracking test wells in the Brown Dense, a layer of rock in Southern Arkansas.

Oil and gas are found in little pockets in the shale by fracturing theses pockets it causes the hydrocarbons to be released, Hence the name fracking. To keep open and widen cracks, sand and chemical treated water is pumped into the shale. A

The formation is located in western North Dakota, southern Saskatchewan, northeastern Montana, and southwestern Manitoba, and has a depth of approximately 130 feet to 12,000 feet deep. The upper and lower Bakken shale layers contain large amounts of organic-rich black mudstone. During the Lower Bakken Member deposition, an increase in the rate of siliciclastic sedimentation (quartz and orthoclase feldspar) caused more organic material to be preserved in bottom sediments. During Upper Bakken Member deposition, an increase in biological productivity in the water column resulted in more organic carbon reaching the bottom where it was subsequently preserved (Bustin & Smith, 1995). The middle layer is made up of mostly mudstone and sandstone. This layer can be tapped by both conventional and continuous oil

The Eagle Ford Shale is located in South Texas, stretching from the boarder of Mexico from just north of Laredo to about 50 miles northwest of Houston, covering a 9,500 mi2 area (Scanlon). It lies about 50 miles west of Austin and 25 miles south of San Antonio. The dimensions of the Eagle Ford Shale are about 50 miles wide and stretching 400 miles long. The Eagle Ford Shale is one of the most oil rich parts of Texas but yet is still one of the driest with only 21 inches of rainfall a year at the heart of the shale, Carrizo Springs. The reason we are interested in this area is to discuss the very fast growing industry of Hydraulic Fracking and its environmental impact. To understand why this area is so rich in oil and natural gas we must

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a process that fractures rock formations in the earth’s surface in order to release hydrocarbons. When these hydrocarbons are released, they flow more freely through the rocks and up to the wellbore, were oil and gas are extracted to (Suchy, 2012). Not all rock formations require a hydraulic fracturing operation to be done because the fluids move freely through rocks that have been naturally fractured. Shale gas reservoirs on the other hand are not permeable and have very few natural fractures; therefore the trapped gas and oil must be extracted by fracking only.

The Marcellus Shale formation located in western Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio is projected to supply an equivalent of 45 years of the United States current energy consumption. Worth an estimated five hundred billion, this can translate into cheaper and wider “variety of products such as plastic, agrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals.” It can also relate to an “increase [in] the supply of fertilizer, ensuring the availability of food and reducing…the conversion of forests to agricultural farms” (Sovacool 252). The fracking industry will only increase in size in future years, so much so that reclamation of shale gas is called the “eminent shale gas revolution. British Petroleum [BP], for instance, expects global shale gas

Since the beginning of the oilfield in the United States, Texas has been one of the leading states in this industry. In 1866, Lyne T. Barret drilled the first producing oil well at Melrose in Nacogdoches County [7]. From here, more wells were brought in, but the big Texas oil revolution began at a well-called Lucas No. 1. It was here, In Spindle top, Beaumont, where Capt. Anthony F. Lucas drilled the well that would produce 94 percent of the state’s production at the time and produce more than 17 million barrels of oil [7]. Now, 114 years later, Texas has given up another oil field play that will revolutionize the industry. This play is named Eagle Ford Shale. Figure 1 shows where the shale outcrops

“The Utica shale is a black, calcareous, organic rich shale of Middle Ordovician age”(King). It is found under Marcellus Shale and is located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and parts of eastern North America. Utica is a couple thousand feet below Marcellus Shale. Utica has large amounts of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquid. The United States Geological Survey estimates about 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 940 million barrels of oil and 208 million of natural gas liquids. The formation is interesting due to its vast size and depth. Also, the gas and oil has very low permeability that

According to Bloomberg Professional, “... 71% of the ownership of oilsands production [is] foreign, while the foreign-based companies controlled 24.2% of the sector’s production” (as cited in De Souza). This research goes to suggest that foreign entities have more control over the oil sands than Canada itself has. For example, through this research it has been discovered that “[s]ome notably Canadian oil companies, such as Suncor, Canadian Oil Sands and Husky, are predominantly owned by non-Canadians.[...]The data also shows us that more than half of Canada’s oil and gas revenue goes to foreign entities.”(Bloomberg Professional as cited in De Souza). Countries like China and the United States are large players in what happens in the oil sands. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day are exported to the United States every day to be refined. Many jobs are made through transport of the oil down into the United States, then the actual refining, as well as many other spinoff jobs in the United States. Canadian producers look to the United States for all sorts of services that the United States can provide. The United States most likely benefits the greatest from the Alberta Oil Sands, but obviously many of the countries in the world also benefit a substantial amount from the production of oil in Alberta (CAPP). China is a good example as they invested 11.7 billion dollars into the oil sands between 2007 and 2011 of the 73.6 billion invested (OilSands Review as cited in Bloomberg Professional as cited in De Souza). The oil sands reaches far into the the world and is a big player in the world

With the United States current demand for oil at roughly 20 million barrels per day, this resource could potential last for another 400 years. These types of numbers suggest that if low-cost production methods can be developed and used effectively to recover the oil, the economic benefits would be great. In the following paper I intend to give clear and succinct information on how oil shale was deposited in the Greater Green River Basin, what it is made of, what was the maturation history of the shale, how the oil is recovered from very impermeable sedimentary units, how economics will play a role in its future as a reliable energy source, as well as the environmental impact of oil production in the basin.

Marcellus Shale, also known, as the Marcellus Formation, is black, organically rich, shale that exists underneath the surface of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia. The shale is located roughly one mile below the surface of these states and has an estimated 141 trillion cubic feet of attainable natural gas. As of 2015, Marcellus shale gas wells were reportedly yielding 14.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (“Marcellus Shale - Appalachian Basin Natural Gas Play”). This shale discovery is known as one of the largest natural gas reserves in the United States, and this underground gas is now reachable thanks to hydraulic fracturing and horizontally drilling. These two techniques, when used in combination, have enabled gas producers to extract shale gas both rapidly and economically” (“The Marcellus Shale Gas Boom”). Although, there are many myths and disagreements with the way America gets this natural gas, it has proven to have more advantages than disadvantages.

A new player -at least in the United States- is entering in the game with a lot of enthusiasm among some of the audience, and a lot of skepticism by some others, that this unconventional player will overtake the conventional ones any time soon. Although, Big hops are held on the new player in the future. This new player is oil shale. The number estimated of oil shale in place in the US is around 4.28 trillion Barrel. An immense amount that’s even hard to imagine. Unfortunately, this amount is not 100% recoverable and the actual recoverable amount is unknown due to the lack of economic methods of recovery. The extraction of economic quantities of oil shale will be true in the near future due to

Shale is the most common sedimentary rock. It was deposited and formed by squeezing excess formation water and mineralogical transformations at different temperatures and pressures. Caprocks are essentially defined as low permeability formations, and sometimes, but not necessarily, with low porosity. More than 60% of effective seals for geologic hydrocarbon bearing formations as natural hydraulic barriers constitute of shale rocks. Shale rocks are predominantly composed of clay such as kaolinite, montmorillonite and illite. They might also have other silica and carbonate based minerals that contribute to their geomechanical strength. In 1965, D. Shaw and C. Weaver documented the average mineralogical composition of shale from three hundred

Most of today’s producing naturally fractured reservoirs were discovered accidentally, they were found by somebody who are looking for some other type of reservoir. Significant volume of hydrocarbon resides in these reservoirs. But these are abandoned particularly in fields because improper testing and evolution or because the wells did not intersect the natural fractures (Aguilera, 1998). Attempts have been made to quantify properties of such reservoir (Chaki et al., 2014).

Numerical simulations have been used in stacked fault-bounded reservoirs to indicate that hydrocarbon migration and entrapment. Multiple factors affect the aforementioned such as charge time, faults, pressure, and geological structures. Charge times for commercial hydrocarbon accumulation are much greater in oil-water systems than those seen in oil-gas-water systems. Faults are broken down into charging faults and “back doors” or faults other than charging faults in stacked fault-bounded reservoirs. Typically the lower the displacement pressure of a given fault, the higher the updip oil transportation ability of the fault is. Downdip oil transportation ability of a fault is generally low and does not allow for the commercial downdip accumulation of oil. Back door faults affect both the hydrocarbon migration pathways and the hydrocarbon percent change. Contrary to this, updip back door faults improve updip oil change. Before 3,000 years, updip back door faults with lower displacement pressure, the more efficient the updip oil change. Back door faults with a displacement pressure equal to or greater than 28.76 psi serve as effective sealing faults in oil-water systems. However, only sealing faults will result in the commercial accumulation of gas in stacked fault-compartmentalized reservoirs. If the aforementioned condition is not present, gas will be found over oil. Down-dip back door faults will have little effect upon downdip hydrocarbon change. Geopressure