Free Republic

Energy companies currently leave about 95 percent of the crude in the ground at today’s unconventional oil wells, but they face major technological challenges in boosting recovery rates, a Schlumberger scientist said Tuesday. Robert Kleinberg, a fellow with the oilfield services firm, bemoaned the current 5 percent recovery factor at tight oil wells, where crude is pulled from the pores of extremely dense rock formations. Geologists and engineers are actively looking for ways to boost the figure, but traditional methods applied at more conventional oil wells — such as pumping steam underground and flooding the formations with water — don’t...

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...

TAHITI PLATFORM, Gulf of Mexico – Deep-water drillers are pushing the boundaries of modern technology to help revive the Gulf of Mexico as one of the world’s most prolific oil producers. In offshore frontiers hit by the 2010 oil spill and drilling moratorium, pioneers are adapting water injection, an old technique for boosting oil recovery, to challenging new environments in the deepest drilling regions of the Gulf. By flushing massive loads of high-pressure water through miles of ocean and earth, they’re stimulating the deepest reservoirs and bringing up more oil. The technique has been used for decades on land to...

It has always been an axiom of world energy markets that Persian Gulf oil is both easy and cheap to produce. The crude that gushes from the scorching desert sands of Saudi Arabia, for example, is widely thought to cost less than $5 a barrel to produce, compared to the $70 price tag on raising a barrel from deep Atlantic waters. But many of the Persian Gulf oilfields have been producing for decades, and an increasing number of the newer fields in the region contain heavier and harder-to-extract crudes. Squeezing out the remaining reserves from some existing fields and developing...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to include additional emissions sources in its first-ever national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting system. EPA contends the data from these sectors will provide a better understanding of where GHGs are coming from and will help EPA and businesses develop effective policies and programs to reduce emissions. "Gathering this information is the first step toward reducing greenhouse emissions and fostering innovative technologies for the clean energy future," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "It's especially important to track potent gases like methane, which traps more than 20 times as much heat as...

Exxon to extend life of Texas field discovered in 1940 ExxonMobil has announced that it will use injections of nitrogen and other gases to squeeze about 40 million barrels of crude out of Hawkins Field, a Texas oil field that was first discovered in 1940. Hawkins Field, located about 100 miles east of Dallas, was one of the largest discoveries in the state and a major energy source for the country during World War II. The field has produced more than 800 million barrels of crude since 1960 and while production has slowed, the field still has active wells. The...

Michael Smallwood looks more like a roadie than a scientist, sporting a shoulder-length silver mane, and jeans and a T-shirt rather than a white lab coat. But he's spent nearly two decades tinkering with a gel-like chemical compound that squeezes oil from rock, sand, dirt and whatever else it clings to. That could pay off now that his boss and benefactor, Kurt Neubauer, saw enough promise to found a company to make the substance and market it. "Discovery is the most important part of science," said Smallwood, chief science officer for Neubauer's startup, Planet Resource Recovery. With Smallwood's creation in...