Shale oil extraction is usually performed above ground ( ex situ processing) by mining the oil shale and then treating it in processing facilities. Other modern technologies perform the processing underground (on-site or in situ processing) by applying heat and extracting the oil via oil wells .
Is shale oil fracking bad for the environment?
Storing barrels of shale oil helps prices remain more stable. Shale oil extraction (fracking) benefits from innovative drilling techniques. Fracking causes ecological damage to the environment. First, oil companies drill vertically into the shale formation. 4 After operators drill the well, they curve it at a 90-degree angle.
How oil and gas is extracted from shale?
Shale gas extraction explained. 01. Hydraulic fracturing, known as ‘fracking’ is where more than a million gallons of fluid is injected into rock formations to stimulate the flow of natural gas or oil. This fractures the rock and increases the volumes of gas or oil that can be recovered above ground. 02.
How much does it cost to produce shale oil?
Most of the decent shale producers have a capex cost of about 45-65% of revenue assuming an oil price of $60. Add to that interest costs, and operating cash costs and the average cash cost actually comes out to about $50/barrel for the more decent shale producers. That chart most likely excludes capital costs from the cash costs.
Why is shale not a good reservoir rock?
Unconventional shale reservoir impacts are broader than conventional reservoirs because of the extensive nature of shale deposits, and the volume of injected, produced and disposed fluids that have to be handled in hydraulic fracturing operations,” said Tinker.
What are the three processes for shale oil extraction?
Extraction process Shale oil is extracted by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution of oil shale. The pyrolysis of the rock is performed in a retort, situated either above ground or within the rock formation itself.
How much does it cost to extract shale oil?
The production cost of a barrel of shale oil ranges from as high as US$95 per barrel to as low US$25 per barrel, although there is no recent confirmation of the latter figure.
How long will US shale oil last?
The Oil Shale Resource Base Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day, so 800 billion barrels would last for more than 400 years if oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand.
Which country has the largest shale oil resources?
The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates China holds the world's largest shale reserves of 31.6 tcm (1,275 tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves.
How much does it cost to extract oil from the ground?
Production costs around $41 a barrel in Canada. In the United States, production costs are $36 a barrel -- still below the trading price. Those findings are from Rystad Energy's UCube database, which has information from roughly 65,000 oil and gas fields around the world.
Is shale oil more expensive to produce?
Shale oil drilling and extraction are far more labor-intensive than conventional oil extraction, making the process necessarily pricier.
Is oil extraction profitable?
Because of advancing technology, the variation of oil, and the differences in deposit quality, there is also no single profit point for companies extracting oil.
How much does it cost to produce barrel of oil?
Crude Oil Cost The cost to produce a barrel varies from about $20 per barrel in Saudi Arabia's desserts to $90 per barrel for some deep-water wells. In the example below, the crude cost is $1.39 per gallon ($58.26 per barrel).
How is oil extracted from shale?
Shale oil extraction is usually performed above ground ( ex situ processing) by mining the oil shale and then treating it in processing facilities. Other modern technologies perform the processing underground (on-site or in situ processing) by applying heat and extracting the oil via oil wells .
What is the process of extracting oil from shale?
The oldest and the most common extraction method involves pyrolysis (also known as retorting or destructive distillation ). In this process, oil shale is heated in the absence of oxygen until its kerogen decomposes into condensable shale oil vapors and non-condensable combustible oil shale gas.
How is kerogen converted into shale oil?
This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing sulfur and nitrogen impurities.
What is tight oil?
For production of crude oil trapped in oil-bearing shales (tight oil), see tight oil. Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution.
What is the history of the oil shale industry?
Main article: History of the oil shale industry. Alexander C. Kirk's retort, used in the mid-to-late 19th century, was one of the first vertical oil shale retorts. Its design is typical of retorts used in the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century.
Why is oil shale not diluted?
Because the hot recycle solids are heated in a separate furnace, the oil shale gas from these technologies is not diluted with combustion exhaust gas. Another advantage is that there is no limit on the smallest particles that the retort can process, thus allowing all the crushed feed to be used. One disadvantage is that more water is used to handle the resulting finer shale ash.
What is shale ash used for?
Spent shale and shale ash can be used as ingredients in cement or brick manufacture. The composition of the oil shale may lend added value to the extraction process through the recovery of by-products, including ammonia, sulfur, aromatic compounds, pitch, asphalt, and waxes.
How to extract shale oil?
Extracting Shale Oil. Obtaining shale oil from oil shale involves heating kerogen in a process called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a form of heating without the use of oxygen. At about 60-160 degrees Celsius (140-320 degrees Fahrenheit), kerogen reaches its natural “oil window.”.
What is oil shale made of?
Oil shale is a type of sedimentary rock that is rich in kerogen. Kerogen is a part of rock that breaks down and releases hydrocarbons when heated. Hydrocarbon s are substances made entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Petroleum and natural gas are probably the most familiar hydrocarbons.
How are oil shale deposits classified?
Oil shales are often classified by their depositional history and mineral content. A sedimentary rock’s depositional history is the history of the type of environment in which the rock developed. The depositional history of an oil shale includes the organisms and sediments that were deposited, as well as how those deposits interacted with pressure and heat.
How much oil is in the Green River?
states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, the Green River formation is an underground oil shale formation that contains as much as 1.8 trillion barrels of shale oil. Although not all of this can be extracted, it is more than three times the proven petroleum reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Why is the United States a good source of oil?
The United States has enormous proven deposits of oil shale. A source of oil in the United States would reduce the need for importing oil from other countries. This would put people to work and make the U.S. less dependent on foreign trade and fluctuating oil prices.
Where are oil shales deposited?
The diagram divides oil shales according to where they were deposited: in lakes ( lacustrine ), in the ocean ( marine ), or on land ( terrestrial ). Oil shales from lacustrine environments formed mostly from algae living in freshwater, saltwater, or brackish water.
Which countries use oil shale?
Many nations, including Estonia, China, and Brazil, continue to rely on oil shale for fuel. It is burned to generate electricity, is a component in chemical industries, and byproduct s are used in cement production.
How does natural gas fill shale form?
How does natural-gas filled shale form? (In deep oceans, organic material falls to the bottom and is compressed by the weight of the water and other sediments on top of it. Eventually, the organic material starts to decay into oil and natural gas. This happens at great pressures and temperatures, which come about as the rock is buried deeper and deeper underground.)
Why doesn't shale release its natural gas without being fractured?
Why doesn't shale release its natural gas without being fractured? (Natural gas doesn't flow easily out of the shale because it is not very permeable. The fracturing process increases the permeability of the shale so natural gas can flow out. )
How to teach students about the Marcellus Shale?
Introduce students to the idea that science is a process of learning how the world works and that scientists do not know the “right” answers when they start to investigate a question . Show the Geologic Cross-Section of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Tell students the Marcellus Shale contains natural gas. They can see examples of scientists' uncertainty in knowing how deep or how thick the shale layers are in some areas. Ask your students to think about these questions, based on the cross-section of Marcellus Shale.
How do geologists find oil and natural gas?
Geologists find oil and natural gas deposits by reading the history in the rocks. Oil and natural gas are formed when organic material is compacted and heated over long periods of time. Water and other sediments over the organic material can provide a lot of pressure to pack the layer.
What happens to the water that is used during the hydraulic fracturing process?
What happens to the water that is used during the hydraulic fracturing process? (Water is pumped underground to fracture the shale. Then some of it returns to the surface, where it is stored in pools above ground.)
What is hydraulic fracturing?
hydraulic fracturing. Noun. process usually used to extract oil and natural gas in which rocks are fractured by injecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure. Also called fracking. methane. Noun. chemical compound that is the basic ingredient of natural gas. model, computational.
Is it possible to drill at the same depth to reach the Marcellus Shale?
Is it possible to drill at the same depth to reach the Marcellus Shale? (No. The Marcellus Shale is buried at different depths, depending on the location. The Marcellus is deeper in Pennsylvania than it is in Ohio.)
Overview
In situ technologies
In situ technologies heat oil shale underground by injecting hot fluids into the rock formation, or by using linear or planar heating sources followed by thermal conduction and convection to distribute heat through the target area. Shale oil is then recovered through vertical wells drilled into the formation. These technologies are potentially able to extract more shale oil from a given area of …
History
In the 10th century, the Assyrian physician Masawaih al-Mardini (Mesue the Younger) wrote of his experiments in extracting oil from "some kind of bituminous shale". The first shale oil extraction patent was granted by the British Crown in 1684 to three people who had "found a way to extract and make great quantities of pitch, tarr, and oyle out of a sort of stone". Modern industrial extra…
Processing principles
Shale oil extraction process decomposes oil shale and converts its kerogen into shale oil—a petroleum-like synthetic crude oil. The process is conducted by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The efficiencies of extraction processes are often evaluated by comparing their yields to the results of a Fischer Assay performed on a sample of the shale.
Classification of extraction technologies
Industry analysts have created several classifications of the technologies used to extract shale oil from oil shale.
By process principles: Based on the treatment of raw oil shale by heat and solvents the methods are classified as pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution.
By location: A frequently used distinction considers whether processing is done above or below …
Ex situ technologies
Internal combustion technologies burn materials (typically char and oil shale gas) within a vertical shaft retort to supply heat for pyrolysis. Typically raw oil shale particles between 12 millimetres (0.5 in) and 75 millimetres (3.0 in) in size are fed into the top of the retort and are heated by the rising hot gases, which pass through the descending oil shale, thereby causing decomposition of the k…
Shale oil
The properties of raw shale oil vary depending on the composition of the parent oil shale and the extraction technology used. Like conventional oil, shale oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, and it is characterized using bulk properties of the oil. Shale oil usually contains large quantities of olefinic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Shale oil can also contain significant quantities of heteroatoms. A typical shale oil composition includes 0.5–1% of oxygen, 1.5–2% of nitrogen and 0.15–1% of sulfur, …
Economics
The dominant question for shale oil production is under what conditions shale oil is economically viable. According to the United States Department of Energy, the capital costs of a 100,000 barrels per day (16,000 m /d) ex-situ processing complex are $3–10 billion. The various attempts to develop oil shale deposits have succeeded only when the shale-oil production cost in a given region is lo…