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Introduction to Catalytic Reforming and the Oil Business
Published in Soni O. Oyekan, Catalytic Naphtha Reforming Process, 2018
Light oils consist of tight and shale oils that are produced essentially from impermeable shale rock type formations. Shale is fine-grained sedimentary rock that is easily broken into parallel layers. Shale rock formations can contain large amounts of oil and/or natural gas. A major extraction challenge is that the hydrocarbons in the shale formation do not flow easily and must be dislodged for accessibility and recovery. In order to extract the oil efficiently and profitably, two production technologies are used. The technologies are referred to as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking. Instead of the typical vertical drilling with possibly a J-type bend used for conventional oils, horizontal drilling involves an initial drilling in the vertical direction for a short distance, followed by drilling horizontally and possibly for a few miles to access oil deposits. To loosen oil deposits spread over a wide area of sedimentary rock, water and chemicals are added at high pressure during oil production to free the oil in the deposits. The application of hydraulic fracking has led to record production of shale or light tight oil and shale gas in the United States. Unfortunately, the 2015 collapse of global oil prices moderated the rate of production of light tight oil. Similarly, applications of improved technologies for exploration and production have led to oil finds in deepwater off the coasts of West Africa and South America and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Planning and Construction of Pipelines
Published in Henry Liu, Pipeline Engineering, 2017
HDD is a new technology borrowed from the oil and gas industries, which have been using it for decades for deep-well drilling of oil and natural gas. In the mid-1970s, the technology was adapted to making horizontal or nearly horizontal drillings across rivers and other obstacles, for installing pipes and utility cables – including not only power lines but also lines for fiber optics. The technology is commonly referred to as horizontal drilling, in order to differentiate it from the vertical or nearly vertical drillings for oil and natural gas. The technology is also referred to as directional drilling, for the drill head is guided by an operator or a computer to maintain the predetermined drill path, and to alter the path as needed.
Fossil Energy Sources
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Power Generation and the Environment, 2021
Horizontal drilling is flexible in that it allows for the extraction of natural gas that had previously not been accessible. Although on the surface it resembles a vertical well, beneath the surface, the well inclines so that it runs parallel to the natural gas formation. These legs can go in different directions at different depths and can be more than one mile long horizontally, in addition to the vertical well that can be thousands of feet below the surface. Horizontal drilling allows one surface well to branch out underground and tap many different natural gas resources. It also allows the well to make contact with larger areas within productive formations.
Oil extraction and crude oil price behavior in the United States: a fractional integration and cointegration analysis
Published in Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2022
Manuel Monge, Enrique Cristobal, Luis A. Gil-Alana, Ana Lazcano
Directional extraction is a mixture of the two previous models. This technique is used to increase extraction capacity and to avoid obstacles that impede access to the reserves or to avoid damaging sensitive environmental areas (Ma, Zhao, and Zhao 2016). Traditionally, the most widely used method to obtain oil in the U.S. has been vertical extraction. However, as we can see in Figure 1, this technology has diminished in use due to the introduction and promotion of other methods such as fracking (horizontal extraction). Nowadays, oil wells drilled horizontally in tight oil formations account for an increasing share of the crude production in the United States. Horizontal wells accounted for 15% of U.S. crude oil production in 2004, increasing to 96% in 2018. Horizontal drilling, parallel to geological layers in narrow formations, allows producers to access more rock that contains oil and natural gas than vertical drilling: this is what is commonly known as hydraulic fracturing (International Energy Administration (IEA 2020) 2020).
Development of a low-cost UAV-based system for CH4 monitoring over oil fields
Published in Environmental Technology, 2021
Siwen Liu, Xufei Yang, Xiaobing Zhou
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which enable the tapping of oil in tight rock formations, are unconventional energy technologies causing the recent boom of shale oil production in North America. These technologies have the potential to not only enhance local economy, but also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal with oil and gas as fuel sources because the combustion of natural gas or oil produces less carbon dioxide (CO2) per unit of energy than that of coal (by ∼56% for gas and ∼79% for oil) [1]. However, a significant amount of methane (CH4) can be emitted during unconventional oil production [2]. CH4 is a potent greenhouse gas with its global warming potential (GWP) 25 times higher than that of CO2 over a 100-year time horizon [3]. CH4 emissions occur when the fracturing fluid is injected into the dense, nonporous medium at high pressures to create fissures in the shale and flows back to the ground surface. CH4 emissions also occur when the plugs, which separate the sections of the fracturing stages of the well, are drilled out. During the production of tight oil, co-occurring natural gas is typically used to flush the oil to the wellbore [4], leading to the release of CH4 to the atmosphere.