The Importance Of Energy Innovation In The Oil Industry

The extraction of natural gas requires a borehole which is dug down to the deep shale formation. After the hole is dug, a steel pipe is inserted into the borehole where it is encased with cement on the outer perimeter of the pipe. A perforation gun is lowered into the cement-encased piping. Using an explosive, the perforation gun perforates the casing and puts initial fractures into the shale at targeted locations. The shale is fractured further by inserting fracking fluids, which consists of 98% water and sand, plus 2% proprietary fluids. The fracking fluids are pushed down into the wellbore and pressurized to 3000 psi causing the initial fracture to spread in the shale, along the shale natural fracture lines. The sand in the fracking fluids keeps the created fractures open which allows the gas from the shale pores to flow into the casing and then to the surface, where it is collected.

Once the well reaches the right depth, it turns right or left and becomes horizontal. This is called the kick off point. The horizontal section can span anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 feet. The drill is removed but the surrounding steel casing remains. These steel casings are meant to protect the groundwater and the surrounding area from any potential leakage during the fracking process. Down at the horizontal section of the well, little holes are punctured through the steel in thousands of spots. Then, a water solution is pumped at a extremely high pressure down the well. This causes tons of cracks and fissures in the rock. Additives and sand in the water mixture hold the cracks open, allowing oil to escape and be brought up to the surface.

A process for retrieving natural gas from 7,000 feet below the earth’s surface has caused environmental concerns. Hydrofracking has been around since the 40’s but wasn’t until the 90’s where technology allowed for a vertical drill to drill horizontally into shall deep below the surface creating several bores and accessing hundreds of acres of shale. Hydrofarcking comes with its controversy, some argue that it is contaminating water sources and creating environmental concerns, while others say there is no proof of this despite many studies.

With the age of constant industrial and technological growth has come the necessity for not only cost effective and efficient methods for industry, but also the need for obtaining fuel for the machines that make the modern world possible. Oil has become as precious a commodity as gold, if not more so; its attainments constantly driving the world's largest businesses and governments across the world into action. Naturally, a "quick-fix" solution to this problem is constantly sought after by oil companies wishing to provide oil on a massive scale. One of these drilling methods is known as induced hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking).

After this, small holes are made in the horizontal bit of the well pipe, through which a mixture of water (90 percent), sand (9.5 percent) and other chemicals (0.5 percent) are pumped at high pressure to create micro-fractures in the rock that are held open by the grains of sand. The other chemicals play a number of roles, including helping to prevent pipe corrosion, this is a great

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

After it has drilled a while deeper another casing is placed to further protect the groundwater from the natural gas and oil which is to be soon produced. Vertically the drill may dig as deep as 4,500 to 7,500 feet.

line is drilled to reach the desirable depth in which natural gases can be extracted. Once drilled,

Before starting the process of fracking the drilling site must be suitable. The site must be four to six acres, cleared from large equipment, and have plastic lines placed for drilling waste . In addition, their must be a water impoundment with about 4 million gallons of water that is collected and stored in order to be pumped into the well. This water is transferred by tanks, trucks, or plastic-lined ponds . Hydraulic fracturing processes begins by drilling a vertical well. The drilling goes through aquifers and dozens of geological layers before it reaches desired location of shale rocked believed to contain natural gas. The drill begins drilling horizontally and a production casing is then inserted into the borehole which is surrounded by cement to case it. Next, a perforating gun is fired to make the shale rock more penetrable. A mixture of water, sand, and various undisclosed chemicals are then pumped in at high pressure in order to fracture/break the shale for the gas to escape. After the fissures in the shale rock occur the natural gas is released through the fissures and is taken up the well to the surface. Last, the water byproduct, also referred to as flow back water or produced water is released and travels back to the surface. The gas that is collected is then processed, refined, and shipped to distributors

The process of the collection of an underground fluid would not be possible without the use of hydraulic fracturing. In the Shale reserves, located about 5,000 feet underground, suffer an extremely low permeability rate. Permeability is the measure of how well a fluid flows through an absorbent material at the depth, and within such nonporous rock, the ability of fluids to travel to the well is greatly limited. Fracturing increases the area of the fluid that is exposed to porous materials and thus greatly increases production. The method of fracturing utilizes a few key components which allow for an economical extraction of resources.

Fissures created by high pressure fracking fluid to increase gas flow to the well also create pathways for leakage and consequent contamination of groundwater (Yu et al. 2014). Boreholes drilled for well access must pass through shallower strata, which may contain groundwater aquifers, before reaching target natural gas reservoirs (Davies et al. 2014). Passing through shallow layers of strata introduces a potential source of contamination to groundwater resources (Davies et al. 2014). Leakage into groundwater wells can occur due to poor well completion practices, the corrosion of steel casing, and the deterioration of cement during production of shale gas (Davies et al. 2014). Therefore, shale gas well integrity is important in reducing contamination events.

The technique was highly widespread, and methods to increase the performance were developed and soon they found out that oil started to flow out from the rocks. Consequently, the employed

The issue of whether offshore oil drilling is a safe operation or not has been arguing for a long time in the United States. ( SPE International, N.D.) Drilling on water started in early 1930s in Louisiana by shallow-draft barges. Nevertheless, the first oil well on water was drilled in 9th of September, 1947 by Kerr-McGee’s unit Tender Assist Drilling (TAD) in the Gulf of Mexico (SPE International, N.D.). A year after year, oil companies used more and more sophisticated equipment to drill on water, but the number of spilled accidents has been rising since 1964 (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). After all, while

The gas that is being produced from the shale that is economically viable is mined (extracted) from the shale stone by drilling then followed by hydraulic fracturing. The directional drilling and horizontal drilling accommodate the hydraulic fracturing process. During hydraulic fracturing is the process whereby a liquid is being injected in a borehole at hire pressure to create cracks and fissures in the subterranean rocks. The liquid that is being injected comprises of water that is being mixed with chemicals and propellant’s like sand, ceramic beads or either by other incompressible material to keep open the cracks and fissures to allow the natural gas to flow to the surface. After some days when the fracturing process has been done the pressure

When steam is injected to the formation a steam chamber around the well is created [3]. The pressure of the steam should be lower than the fracture pressure of the rock mass to prevent the deflection of the rock [4]. Steam injection will go on for months during which the steam chamber expands and the viscosity of the bitumen decreases. This will cause the bitumen to flow down under gravity towards the production well. The produced oil is then pumped to the surface. Surface facilities are then used to separate the water