The purpose of this paper is to explain the depositional environment, petrology, mineralogy, structure, exploration, technology, methods of extraction and processing, as well as the applications and economics of oil in the Greater Green River Basin. This paper will mainly focus on the oil shale within the basin but will also touch on some of the more conventional oil and gas plays as well. According to Crawford and Killen (2010), Oil Shale is defined as being “a sedimentary rock embedded with organic material called kerogen… and has not been under the necessary heat, pressure, and/or depth for the right length of time to form crude oil”. Oil shale is typically found in silica and carbonate based rocks that are usually no greater than 900 …show more content…
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.
Structure of the Greater Green River Basin
The Greater Green River Basin is a basin located in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. The mountains that surround the basin are the Wind River Mountains and Granite Mountains (Sweetwater Arch) to the north, the Uinta Mountains to the south, the Wyoming thrust belt to the west, and the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Rawlins Uplift to the East. The Great Green River Basin is further subdivided into sub-basins as mentioned earlier by intrabasinal anticlines. The largest anticline occupies the central portion of the basin and nearly separates the basin into equal east and west segments. There are also several other anticlinal
When oil was first discovered it was “Discovered of the spindle top oilfield near Beaumont in January 10, 1901 marked the opening of the prosperous phase of the business in Texas.” But not long after discovering in Texas it would soon be discovered in Oklahoma in 1905. Shortly after 1910 more oil was being founded and more was coming out of Texas. By the end of the Progressive Era in 1920’s “Texas was producing 85,000,000 barrels per year with even more dramatic increase
In Texas, there is an economic powerhouse that not only runs deep beneath fields of cotton, but also reaches miles beyond the green pastures of cattle. Its multitude of uses in daily life also far outweighs the benefits of technology. This resource, greater than any other in Texas, is oil. In 1866 the first commercial oil well was dug near Nacogdoches, Texas but unfortunately the well came up dry. Thirty years later in 1894 oil was discovered in Corsicana, Texas by accident while a water well was being dug. This was the first economically significant discovery of oil in Texas. On January 10, 1901, Texas was catapulted into the era of oil and gas with the discovery at Spindletop. The Spindletop well, located south of Beaumont produced roughly
Shale is found in many colors but those that are very dark or black contain oil and gas. Conventional drillers look for pools of oil and gas above shale rock. “The oil and natural gas migrated out of the shale and upwards through the sediment mass because of their low density. The oil and gas were often trapped within the pore spaces of an overlying rock unit such as sandstone. These types of oil and gas deposits are known as "conventional reservoirs" because the fluids can easily flow through the pores of the rock and into the extraction well”. (Geology.com King) Conventional drilling into shale has declined because those conventional supplies are disappearing and drilling companies have known this for quite some time. They also know that more oil and gas can be extracted. Geology.com’s Hobart King provides this insight. “Although drilling can extract large amounts of oil and natural gas from the reservoir rock, much of it remains trapped within the shale. This oil and gas is very difficult to remove because it is trapped within tiny pore spaces or adsorbed onto clay mineral particles that make-up the shale. In the late 1990s natural gas drilling companies developed new methods for liberating oil and natural gas that is trapped within the tiny pore spaces of shale. This discovery was significant because it unlocked some of the largest natural gas deposits in the world” (King Geology.com). The site goes on to provide this outlook for fracking oil
The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).
The American energy revolution, otherwise known as The "Shale Gas Revolution," is described as being the big change in the ways in which we get our oil. In other words, it is a way of making the longevity of the oil we use as energy last just a little bit longer. The conventional oil we extract from the ground is rapidly running out, fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is another way to get more oil out of the ground from less. Much of the oil we have left on Earth is trapped in shale rocks beneath the surface, not easily retrieved. These rocks are impermeable making it difficult to get to the oil enclosed inside. By the use of fracking, which opens up these rocks in order to let the natural gas and crude oil inside flow out, we increase the time in which we have oil left in the Earth, to use this valuable fossil fuel. According to Gold, in 2008 it was a small energy firm located in Canada that was first to administer a report entitled "The Shale Gas Revolution," which took to its supporters and is now used commonly. Gold believes in the revolution because he recognizes that the old ways of extracting the oil are crumbling, coal is no longer the major source of energy for making electricity, and a big change is occurring (Gold, 2014).
If John D. Rockefeller, one of the first oil tycoons, were to look at the oil industry today, would he believe his eyes? With millions of oil barrels being imported and exported each year, the oil industry has changed dramatically since the 19th century. At the forefront of the oil industry is the emergence of an oil drilling technique known as fracking. Fracking is an unconventional drilling process that is accomplished by using high-pressured water to release oil and natural gas from rock formations, known as shales. The use of fracking in the United States has made it one of the top oil producing countries in the world. However, this newfound oil and gas drilling method has not come without its costs. Despite the economic boom near drilling locations, politically, fracking has caused some international relationships to be strained. Also, fracking is seen as highly controversial by conservationists because of the environmental threats that it poses. The drilling method of fracking has deeply impacted the United States from an economic, a political, and an environmental standpoint.
Morris, J., & Song, L. (2013, September 16). Study Delivers Good News, Bad News on
The Arkoma Basin is one of several foreland basins that formed along the Ouachita Orogenic Belt during the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian time periods. It covers approximately 33,800 square miles and extends from southeastern Oklahoma to central Arkansas (Perry, 1997). The Arkoma Basin is bounded to the north by the Ozark Uplift, to the south by the Ouachita Mountains, to the northwest by the Anadarko Basin, to the southwest by the Arbuckle Uplift, and to the southeast by the Mississippian Embayment (Figure 5). The red box in figure 5 denotes the general location of the study area, which is in the eastern Arkoma section.
Saturation trends in the Pronghorn and the upper Three Forks (Figure 21), indicates that hydrocarbons are being occluded from the lower Bakken into the Three Forks, but not entirely. Oil saturation gradually decreases from the top of the Pronghorn to the base indicating less hydrocarbons are being pushed into the upper Three Forks. However, the oil saturation never reach 0% and only decreases to approximately 60 to 70 % water saturation. The oil saturation then gradually increases from the top of the Three Forks to the top of the first claystone. This trend is observed throughout all the wells within Painted Woods, independent to the thickness of the Pronghorn. Even though there is less volume of generated lower Bakken hydrocarbons, oil is still able to be transmitted through the Pronghorn across Painted Woods. However, the quantities transmitted are likely less compared to other
In 2000, shale beds where the number one source of America’s constant need for gas. Most of that production increase has come about to the growing need of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”, which is a process used to release oil or gas from underground formations that are otherwise too hard to mine with other tools. Over the past few years, advances in fracking technology have made huge reserves of natural gas in America economically recoverable. According to the Energy Information Administration, shale gas plays, or fields, in the United States, most notably the Marcellus, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York, and the Barnett, in Texas, are said to contain enough natural gas to give power to the country for a hundred and ten years. With the everlasting specter of energy independence, some have argued that such efforts to recover natural gas need to be expanded. Activists concerned with fracking’s potential environmental hazards view the new process as a serious threat to our environment. There are many different opinions on wether or not fracking is a safe way to gain our gasoline, and to meet the growing demands of gasoline around the world. The process of fracking creates cracks that come from wells into oil and gas formations by pumping highly pressurized fluids, ceramic beads, sand, and a mixture of chemicals, into the gas formation. As this fluid holds the underground fissures open, oil and gas fly up the well to the surface where they are
The United States has one of the largest deposits of shale oil, so drilling for it may seem like a logical decision “…over 750 trillion cubic feet of …shale gas and 24 billion barrels of … shale oil resources…exist in…shale plays… developing these resources creates jobs and fuels our economy… the key…is through the process of hydraulic fracturing…” (Energy Tomorrow 2013). The number of jobs created by the institution of hydraulic fracturing is widely touted by proponents of hydraulic fracturing, but the number of jobs directly created may actually be smaller than claimed. In Pennsylvania, many jobs were created from hydraulic fracturing, though most are not as a direct result from the institution of hydraulic fracturing. In the third quarter of last year, 216,946 jobs were created in Pennsylvania as a result of hydraulic fracturing…but only 30,000 of those jobs are actually from fields that are closely related to hydraulic fracturing. “It (number of jobs created) covers industries whose connection to oil and gas development is tenuous …ranging from freight trucking to highway, street, and bridge construction… agency officials …admit that the figure—when used to estimate jobs supported by shale—amounts to little more than a guess” (“Foran”). Even though hydraulic fracturing is continuing to create jobs, the number is starting to decline as a result of the success of hydraulic
The Denver Basin began to form as early as 300 million years ago. The site is made up of paleozoic, mesozoic, cenozoic and sedimentary rock layers. The formation of the Denver Basin is known as “Colorado Orogeny”. Orogeny is a process in which the Earth’s crust is folded and deformed to create a mountain form. During this process, the Ancestral Rockies were formed. Other rocks formed during this time period include the Fountain Formation; which is most visible at Red Rocks and Boulder Flatirons. The Basin was most likely deepened in the Paleogene time, which was between 66 and 45 million years ago. In between that time period, the Laramide orogeny formed the modern day Colorado Rockies. The Denver Basin is centered in eastern Colorado. Around
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
Natural gas began to be extracted from the Marcellus shale formation in the mid-2000s’, and now well pads and their associated infrastructures are now well known fixtures in the Appalachian Mountain regions. Marcellus Shale is an organically rich black shale which is currently being explored by drilling as a source of natural gas. The region in question encompasses most of the relatively uninhabited Appalachian basin, which is located within the Appalachian mountain range. The basin is comprised of sedimentary rocks which stretch from Ontario, Canada all the way down through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and New Jersey.
A lot Scientists and oil field experts have been collecting facts and scientific evidences to try to predict the period at which peak oil will occur. Two of the scientists working toward this discovery are Colin J. Campbell and Jean H laherre. Those two scientists wrote an article about the aftermath s of the 1970 's oil embargo sppured reachees over the decline of oil, which resulted in erroneous conclusions due to various factors (78). In order to truly cast light on the issue of oil decline, Campbell and Laherrère merged a variety of techniques which comprise the examination of “the decline of aging fields” and “the diminishing returns on exploration in larger regions”, the extrapolation of the size