shale oil

Two places that illustrate the mounting challenges facing the shale business are the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, where the number of working rigs is one-third what it was a year ago, and the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas, where there are no more working rigs.

In drawdown management, operators can exert control over the downhole flow pressure, reservoir pressure, and choke size to avoid estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) losses.

The Bakken’s ultratight, largely oil-wet nature limits the potential of waterflooding. As an alternative, an optimally spaced well-to-well surfactant-flooding technology is proposed.

This paper discusses aspects of water logistics necessary during the well-completion phase, fracture-treatment designs applied in Vaca Muerta, and laboratory studies performed on flowback and produced water to help evaluate the potential for water reuse.

Although refracturing is a topic that has gained a lot of interest, many shale producers have been sitting on the sidelines because early results did not justify the spending

Pulled directly from the reservoir rock, core samples provide critical data used to determine how exploration should proceed. Until recently, core analysis remained old school, however, there is an ongoing transition to bring the process of core description into the digital age.

A panel of experts says US shale producers need to rethink their drilling and completion designs as problems mount for horizontal wells when they go on pump. Hanging in the balance is whether long-term production from many shale wells will be achievable.

To understand production from shale reservoirs, the role of hydraulically induced fractures, natural fractures, and their interaction in a formation must be captured.

The pursuit of sweet spots in unconventional oil and gas plays is driving the creation of an emerging set of data-driven systems to measure, map, and predict how wells will perform in unconventional reservoirs.

At the recent 2015 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, a major theme was how companies can improve performance without increasing the size of their budget.