There's a shocking amount of energy being found [ArthurK]

Here's a linkfest for news about shale gas, oil from shale rock,tar sands and such. We keep finding more of it. It'd be nice if we were able to USE more of it in the US. They seem pretty excited about shale gas in the UK, Europe and Israel.


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US proved natural gas, crude oil reserves soar

* Gas reserves rise most in U.S. history

* Technology advances, not new fields, boost reserves


U.S. natural gas reserves increased by the most in history last year, and crude reserves also rose, as companies drilled frantically into shale rock
formations with new technology...

U.S. net proved crude oil reserves rose 9 percent, or 1.8 billion barrels, to 22.3 billion barrels in 2009. Texas saw its proved oil volumes rise most, by 529 million barrels, or 11 percent.

North Dakota, home of the oil-rich Bakken Shale formation, saw its reserves jump by a whopping 83 percent, or 481 million barrels.

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North America: The new energy kingdom

(the claim about more oil produced in October than in any other month ever is wrong - twice as much was produced in 1970. The other statements are still interesting)

Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia.


With rising production from shale fields, the U.S. surpassed Russia last year to become the world's largest supplier of natural gas.


For natural gas, the U.S. has the four largest fields in the world...

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Shale-Gas Output May Double by 2035

This year’s outlook more than doubles the estimate of U.S. technically recoverable reserves of natural gas from shale, a type of sedimentary rock, to 827 trillion cubic feet from 347 trillion cubic feet.

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Shale Gas - A revolution 50 years in the making?

Gas markets consultant Leigh Bolton of Holmwood Consulting gave a wary view of shale's prospects. It was a comprehensive catalog of concerns, focusing on the difficulties of drilling and uncertainty of return, rather than eco-alarmism. Bolton said that the European experience of shale would be very different to that of the US. Partly this was because of the high population density, but also because of red tape, and the lack of a services infrastructure here. By contrast, the US has a tradition of wild-catting, and established services pop up as soon as excavators need them. This means higher costs.


Another guy said...



One field alone in populous Texas, Barnett Shale, has produced 226bn cubic metres (BCM) since 2004. The UK needs to import 10.4bn cubic metres of gas. A few fields here* could see Britain exporting LNG - something the US shale producers are already doing in volume. He said every pessimistic estimate to date had been proven wrong - the recoverable reserve estimates in Argentina and India had grown tenfold and twentyfold respectively in just two years.


*UK has unexploited shale gas fields.

Poland receives 70 per cent of its gas from Russian-owned Gazprom, which has turned off the pipeline to neighbours the Ukraine and Belarus. Poland sits on perhaps the largest potential reserves of shale in the world, and for the fast five years has seen a gold rush, with 11 energy companies acquiring licences, drilling rights and creating exploratory wells.


"For six months it's noisy and loud, there's trucks and noise, then it's ready. And they get roads and infrastructure and 50 years of local, low-cost gas." A well is surrounded by trees and looks like a small spinney - hard to spot from Google Earth, he said. Poles were delighted to be energy-independent from Russia, he said.


Yay, Poland!


Gasland* gave shale some notoriety for showing householders with flaming water coming from their taps. But the local Oil and Gas Conservation Commission declared the combustible material had come from decomposing surface material, not the well.


This isn't too surprising when the aquifer is at 100m, and the fracking takes place several thousand metres below.


*HBO documentary.

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Scramble For Shale Gas Riches

The development of shale gas in America has transformed the country from the world’s biggest gas importer to a producer with nearly a century’s worth of new supplies.


Wood Mackenzie, the analyst, said that if Polish shale works, it could increase European reserves by 50%. Here, as in America, shales have long been ignored. Drillers usually passed right through them to get to reservoirs below. Fracking has turned them into a resource, though it is not without complications.

posted by Open Blogger at 06:52 PM

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