This stuff works real good..........
Posted on 03/04/2013 5:52:07 AM PST by thackney
The next great leap in oil production won’t come from massive drilling machines that can reach for miles underground, but from scientists working with beakers, blenders and goo.
The biggest names in drilling are putting their money on chemistry, focusing on creating new molecules and chemical combinations that can squeeze more oil and gas out of underground rocks.
“If we can get more out than anyone else …then that’s how we win,” said Gregory Powers, vice president of technology for Halliburton.
With teams of scientists working in laboratories across Houston and around the world, energy companies are testing chemicals that can be used in hydraulic fracturing fluids to cut down environmental strain, reduce costs and ratchet up profits.
They are manipulating molecules, blending fluids and blasting the combinations into rock samples to test their effectiveness.
Chemical advancements offer great opportunity to boost oil and gas production because they can help draw more hydrocarbons out of rocks that have been fractured using modern drilling techniques, said Jim Bruton, vice president of research and engineering for Schlumberger’s chemistry-focused M-I SWACO subsidiary in Sugar Land.
Even the cutting-edge drilling techniques, however, incorporate decades-old additives into hydraulic fracturing fluids that include mostly water and sand, Powers said, opening the door for chemical innovation.
Reaching deeper rock
Recent chemical advances are allowing oil companies to reach deeper into underground rocks, helping to clear wells of gunk that can restrict the flow of desirable products, and even offering the capability to use magnetically charged particles to track which portions of a well are producing best, experts said.
“You change one hydrogen electron, you change the position of one carbon atom, and all bets are off,” Powers said.
Oil companies use high-pressure jets to fire fracturing fluids into rocks deep underground, forming cracks that can be more than 100 feet long. These fissures allow oil and gas to seep into wells and flow up to the surface.
But the amount of hydrocarbons that flow out of the cracks can depend on how deep into the rocks engineers are able to push grains of sand that serve to hold the fractures open, a factor that can be controlled with chemistry.
If the fractures collapse or get clogged with ineffective chemicals or other material, they are less productive, said Andrew Barron, a professor of chemistry and materials science at Rice University. Better chemicals could help move sand to prop up the fractures, Barron said.
“Let’s say you fracture 100 feet out from where you initiate the fracture, but you only prop maybe 20 feet out,” Barron said. “Then what happens is when you release the pressure, the rock comes back together. You lose all that permeability, all that porosity that allows that oil and gas to come out.”
New additives
New fluid additives already developed can reduce clogging, improve the spread of sand and pull more oil and gas out of reservoirs, Barron said.
Gooey chemicals that are used to thicken the fracturing fluid and keep sand dispersed throughout the mix have been designed to fall out of the fluid more cleanly, leaving less residue behind with the sand, Powers said.
Other new chemicals react less with underground rocks, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Houston.
“A lot of times these frac fluids can interact with the rock and get stuck there and not work anymore,” Krishnamoorti said. “So you have to keep adding more and more frac fluids and that becomes a big problem.”
Barron said that while chemical innovations offer an opportunity for oil and gas producers to improve well productivity, some companies have continued inefficient practices that result in higher costs, water use and emissions from equipment.
“Anything you do to limit the flow of oil and gas, the worse you’re going to be because you’ll have to drill more wells, you’ll have to use higher pressure, you’ll have to do more frac stages just to get the same amount of oil and gas,” he said.
Halliburton is among several companies stepping up their efforts to test new chemical combinations. The oil field services giant last year opened a new 215,000-square-foot technology center in Houston staffed with more than 550 people and aimed largely at chemical advancements.
“We actually create new molecules here,” said Powers, the technology vice president, standing in front of a Halliburton lab where chemists were mixing fluids for testing on rock samples in high-pressure tubes.
Greener products
Schlumberger is focusing on chemistry at its Sugar Land office, and FTS International opened a new multimillion-dollar lab this year that will be dedicated to crafting more effective fracturing chemicals.
The new FTS laboratory in Houston also will tailor fracturing fluids for specific well sites, said lab director Mahmoud Asadi.
Other companies have staffed up on chemists for new research on fluid technology, which they say can be more environmentally friendly and effective.
“If you want to be a compliant, greener company, you need to hire experts in the field that can get you there that are chemists,” said Danny Durham, Apache Corp.’s manager of global upstream chemicals, a new position that was created last year.
Durham is aiming to improve Apache’s use of chemicals so that they are more productive.He also plans to use chemicals on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Designed for the Environment list of substances that the agency considers safe for the environment.
“It can actually be done where you pick those products that create better wells,” Durham said. “Better and also greener. And that’s our goal.”
This is going to blow up in our faces ... and probably quite literally.
Please tell us more about your views and present some evidence.
If we drill here, drill everywhere and drill now!
This could resurrect our economy, and yes make 0bama look good.
Every penny that goes to mohamadians supports our enemy’s!
Sadly it is an unlikely event.
This stuff works real good..........
How do you come to that conclusion?
I know of someone who was able to microgrind and fluidize coal with surfactants to replace #6 Bunker, firing steam boilers. This technology is completely worked out, but abandoned when the price of crude leveled out, back in the mid to late 70s.
Hope some goes to support grammarians, lexicologists, and their publishers. (smile)
Sasol has done coal-to-liquid fuel for quite some time.
http://www.sasol.com/sasol_internet/downloads/CTL_Brochure_1125921891488.pdf
You might be interested in the coal to gas technology called TRIG developed by the Southern Company, they are building a power plant now in MS.
Are they with the Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation & Posting Patrol?
We have been acquainted with each other for quite sometime now.
They managed to use coal in this country in the 1800’s up to before WWII to light the street lamps with hydrogen produced from coal in a process close to gasification.
From the Homeland Language Security Division ---
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