A cousin of the rock-fracturing technology that has created an energy boom from deep, dense beds of shale may be used to extract oil and gas from shallower beds that have offered promise for decades but have defined commercialization.
"Exxon Mobil Corp. is continuing with a project to extract crude from
oil shale in western Colorado, an area that other major oil companies
have given up on," Mike Lee reports for EnergyWire. "The supermajor is one of a handful of companies moving forward with
research on (160-acre) leases obtained from the Bureau of Land Management in Rio
Blanco County. The BLM gave Exxon and another company, Natural Soda
Holdings Inc., permission to proceed with testing at the end of
February." A state permit is still needed, reports Dennis Webb of the Grand Junction Sentinel. (Sentinel map)
"Exxon plans to use a technique called electrofracking, in which the rock is split and filled with a mixture of cement and calcinated coke," which conducts electricity, Lee writes. "An electric current is passed through the mixture, heating the surrounding shale and converting it to oil and gas, according to a Department of Energy report."
Natural Soda, which produces sodium bicarbonate in the area by injecting hot water underground, plans to use a variant of that method to extract oil and gas from kerogen, a solid hydrocarbon that must be heated to be released from the shale. It plans on "producing oil from underground by heating it using either a downhole burner or a closed-loop steam system," Webb writes. He notes that environmentalists are skeptical that the new techniques will lead to commercial development of the vast oil-shale resource, but are glad to see that the projects will get closer environmental monitoring than previous ones in the area, which date to the late 1960s.
The latest developments offer an opportunity for journalists and readers to distinguish between oil shale, generally known as a surface or near-surface rock that contains kerogen, and shale oil, which is the liquid petroleum produced from deep, dense shales that could not be tapped commercially until the development of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.
"Exxon plans to use a technique called electrofracking, in which the rock is split and filled with a mixture of cement and calcinated coke," which conducts electricity, Lee writes. "An electric current is passed through the mixture, heating the surrounding shale and converting it to oil and gas, according to a Department of Energy report."
Natural Soda, which produces sodium bicarbonate in the area by injecting hot water underground, plans to use a variant of that method to extract oil and gas from kerogen, a solid hydrocarbon that must be heated to be released from the shale. It plans on "producing oil from underground by heating it using either a downhole burner or a closed-loop steam system," Webb writes. He notes that environmentalists are skeptical that the new techniques will lead to commercial development of the vast oil-shale resource, but are glad to see that the projects will get closer environmental monitoring than previous ones in the area, which date to the late 1960s.
The latest developments offer an opportunity for journalists and readers to distinguish between oil shale, generally known as a surface or near-surface rock that contains kerogen, and shale oil, which is the liquid petroleum produced from deep, dense shales that could not be tapped commercially until the development of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.
For more than one hundred years, shale oil has been the term applied to oil extracted from artificially heated oil shale under controlled conditions. The current use to describe oil extracted from artificially fractured oil-bearing shale simply adds to terminologic confusion. It would be helpful to distinguish shale oil from shale-hosted oil, but industry has begun to refer to it as tight oil (although most oil I have encountered could hardly be called tight).
ReplyDeleteFor more than 100 years, shale oil has been the term applied to oil extracted from oil shale by artificially heating it. The use of the same term to describe oil extracted from low permeability oil-bearing rock by artificially fracturing it adds to the confusion. The term shale-hosted oil is technically equally correct, although industry appears to be using the term tight oil. I have never seen any oil that I would call tight.
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