Unconventional oil and gas resources are resources where the oil and gas are difficult to recover or produce due to either the very low permeability of the formation or the very low mobility of the hydrocarbons. Special techniques and processes are required to recover these types of resources.
The three common types of unconventional hydrocarbon resources are:
- Oil sands.
- Shale oil and shale gas.
- Coal-bed Methane.
Oil Sands
The world’s largest oil sand deposit is the Athabasca oil sands located in Alberta, Canada. Oil sands are a mixture of semi-solid bitumen or asphalt and sand, and they are buried not far from the earth’s surface. Commercial production of the Athabasca oil sands began in 1967 and the current production is at around two million BOPD. Many major oil companies are involved in the production of these oil sands.
Two methods are used to recover the oil from the oil sands. They are open-pit mining and the SAGD method.
The open-pit mining method is commonly used to extract the oil from oil sands located near the earth’s surface. After the tar sand is mined, it is mixed with hot water and agitated to form a slurry. The released bitumen droplets will float to the surface with the help of the tiny air bubbles which attach to the bitumen droplets. The bitumen will then be skimmed off and further processed to remove the remaining water and solids. Lastly, the bitumen will be upgraded to synthetic crude oil. About 75% of the bitumen can be extracted from the tar sands.
For tar sands located at a deeper depth, in-situ production methods are used, such as steam injection, fire flooding, and chemical injection. A popular steam injection method is the SAGD method. In SAGD, steam-assisted gravity drainage, a pair of horizontal wells are drilled into the oil sand, one at the bottom of the formation and another about 5 meters above it. High-pressure steam is injected into the sand from the upper well to heat the heavy oil and thus reduce its viscosity. With the increase in mobility, the oil drains into the lower well where it is pumped to the surface. SAGD is the preferred method for extracting the oil sands due to environmental concerns.
Shale Oil and Shale Gas
Another currently popular unconventional hydrocarbon resource is shale oil and shale gas. Shale oil is oil that is trapped inside the tight shale. Shale is a hard sedimentary rock
composed of clay that is rich in organic materials. Since tight shale has very low permeability, the hydraulic fracturing method is used to extract the oil. In hydraulic fracturing, a large quantity of viscous fluid-carrying sand is pumped into the well under high pressure to fracture the shale, creating pathways and highways for the oil to flow out of the shale and into the wellbore.
Most shale oil production takes place in the US and the daily production of shale oil reaches six million BOPD in 2017. A large quantity of gas is also produced from shale. According to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), gas production from shale in the US in 2016 was 15.8 trillion cubic feet (TCF).
The most well-known and top shale oil plays in the US are the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale in Texas, and Bakken Shale in North Dakota.
Coal Bed Methane
Coalbed methane (CBM) is an unconventional resource of methane gas. It is being produced successfully in some parts of the world, notably in Australia and Canada. Since coal is formed from organic materials, methane gas (CH4) is generated during the formation of coal. The generated methane is adsorbed in the coal matrix, fractures and coal seams called cleats. Cleats are horizontal and vertical fractures formed naturally in coal.
Wells are needed to produce the trapped methane gas. Since underground coal is usually saturated with water, methane is extracted by first removing the water from the coal by pumping out the water. As the water is pumped out from the well, the coal pore pressure will decrease causing the adsorbed gas to be liberated from the coal and then flow to the wellbore. Due to the low permeability of the coal matrix, the coal must have a sufficient network of fractures and cleats to produce the methane gas at economic production rates.
This article was written by Jamin Djuang, a published author of “The Story of Oil and Gas: How Oil and Gas Are Explored, Drilled and Produced” for readers who have not seen an oil field.
