SHALE GAS

Listing description

Shale gas is natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations.^[1] Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States since the start of this century, and interest has spread to potential gas shales in the rest of the world.

Detailed description

 In 2000 shale gas provided only 1% of U.S. natural gas production; by 2010 it was over 20% and the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration predicts that by 2035, 46% of the United States' natural gas supply will come from shale gas.^[2]

Some analysts expect that shale gas will greatly expand worldwide energy supply.^[3] China is estimated to have the world's largest shale gas reserves.^[4] A study by the Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University concluded that increased shale gas production in the US and Canada could help prevent Russia and Persian Gulf countries from dictating higher prices for the gas they export to European countries.^[5]

The Obama administration believes that increased shale gas development will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.^[6] In 2012, US carbon dioxide emissions dropped to a 20-year low.^[7] Human and public health will both benefit from shale gas displacing coal burning.

A 2013 review by the United Kingdom Department of Energy and Climate Change noted that most studies of the subject have estimated that life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shale gas are similar to those of conventional natural gas, and are much less than those from coal, usually about half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal; the noted exception was a 2011 study by Howarth and others of Cornell University, which concluded that shale GHG emissions were as high as those of coal.More recent studies have also concluded that life-cycle shale gas GHG emissions are much less than those of coal, among them, studies by Natural Resources Canada (2012), and a consortium formed by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory with a number of universities (2012).

Some 2011 studies pointed to high rates of decline of some shale gas wells as an indication that shale gas production may ultimately be much lower than is currently projected. But shale-gas discoveries are also opening up substantial new resources of tight oil / "shale oil".^[18]

History

US

Shale gas was first extracted as a resource in Fredonia, New York, in 1821,^[19][20] in shallow, low-pressure fractures. Horizontal drilling began in the 1930s, and in 1947 a well was first fracked in the U.S.^[2]

Federal price controls on natural gas led to shortages in the 1970s.^[21] Faced with declining natural gas production, the federal government invested in many supply alternatives, including the Eastern Gas Shales Project, which lasted from 1976 to 1992, and the annual FERC-approved research budget of the Gas Research Institute, where the federal government began extensive research funding in 1982, disseminating the results to industry.^[2] The federal government also provided tax credits and rules benefiting the industry in the1980 Energy Act.^[2] The Department of Energy later partnered with private gas companies to complete the first successful air-drilled multi-fracture horizontal well in shale in 1986. The federal government further incentivized drilling in shale via the Section 29 tax credit for unconventional gas from 1980-2000. Microseismic imaging, a crucial input to both hydraulic fracturing in shale and offshore oil drilling, originated from coalbeds research at Sandia National Laboratories. The DOE program also applied two technologies that had been developed previously by industry, massive hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, to shale gas formations.^[22] that led to microseismic imaging.

Although the Eastern Gas Shales Project had increased gas production in the Appalachian and Michigan basins, shale gas was still widely seen as marginal to uneconomic without tax credits, and shale gas provided only 1.6% of US gas production in 2000, when the federal tax credits expired.^[21]

George P. Mitchell is regarded as the father of the shale gas industry, by making it commercially viable in the Barnett Shale by getting costs down to $4 per 1 million British thermal units (1,100 megajoules).^[23] Mitchell Energy achieved the first economical shale fracture in 1998 using slick-water fracturing.^[24][25][26] Since then, natural gas from shale has been the fastest growing contributor to total primary energy in the United States, and has led many other countries to pursue shale deposits. According to the IEA, shale gas could increase technically recoverable natural gas resources by almost 50%.^[27]

Geology

Because shales ordinarily have insufficient permeability to allow significant fluid flow to a wellbore, most shales are not commercial sources of natural gas. Shale gas is one of a number of unconventional sources of natural gas; others include coalbed methane, tight sandstones, and methane hydrates. Shale gas areas are often known as resource plays^[28](as opposed to exploration plays). The geological risk of not finding gas is low in resource plays, but the potential profits per successful well are usually also lower.

PRICE

$4.90/68286KG OR $4.90/150,230IB

For more information:

mobile: +2348039721941

contact person: emeaba uche

e-mail: emeabau@yahoo.com

website: www.franchiseminerals.com