She is the President of the economic website World Money Watch. As a writer for The Balance, Kimberly provides insight on the state of the present-day economy, as well as past events that have had a lasting impact.
Shale oil is a high-quality crude oil that lies between layers of shale rock, impermeable mudstone, or siltstone. Oil companies produce shale oil by fracturing the rock formations that contain the layers of oil.
Since , U. First, oil companies drill vertically into the shale formation. At this kickoff point, they drill horizontally. This technique allows them to access 10, feet of the reservoir rock. The sand holds the fractures open. That allows the oil to seep into the well. Companies in Texas used horizontal drilling in the s. This technique propelled North Dakota field production from 7 million barrels in January to 46 million in October In these fields, drillers use multistage fracking to create longer cracks.
That allows them to concentrate the bursts of water in targeted spots. Don't confuse shale oil with oil shale. That is rock suffused with kerogen, a precursor to oil. Shale oil extraction methods are more flexible than traditional oil well drilling.
Shale oil companies have increased productivity since When they stop extracting, they store the oil in the ground. At that point, they can start extracting oil from the wells they've already drilled. That will keep prices from rising much above that price level.
The latest oil price forecast shows they will remain in that range. That's important because oil prices are determined by much more than the laws of demand and supply. Investor sentiment has more influence on oil prices. Oil shale is the rock from which shale oil is extract ed. Shale oil is similar to petroleum, and can be refined into many different substances, including diesel fuel, gasoline , and liquid petroleum gas LPG. Companies can also refine shale oil to produce other commercial products, such as ammonia and sulfur.
The spent rock can be used in cement. Oil-bearing shale s are underground rock formations that contain trapped petroleum. Companies extracting tight oil often use hydraulic fracturing fracking , while companies extracting shale oil most often use heat. The Bakken formation , for example, is made of oil-bearing shale. It is a series of layered shale rocks with a petroleum reservoir trapped between the layers. The Bakken formation stretches from the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, through the U.
Improved drilling technologies have allowed companies to extract oil from the Bakken formation, creating an economic boom in the region.
Oil shales are often classified by their depositional history and mineral content. 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.
The van Krevelen Diagram is a method of classifying oil shales based on their depositional history. 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. Lamosite and torbanite are types of oil shales associated with lacustrine environments.
Lamosite deposits make up some of the largest oil shale formations in the world. Oil shales from marine environments formed mostly from deposits of algae and plankton. Kukersite, tasmanite, and marinite are types of marine shales.
Tasmanite is named after the region in which it was discovered, the island of Tasmania, Australia. Marinite, the most abundant of all oil shales, is found in environments that once held wide, shallow seas. Although marinite is abundant, it is often a thin layer and not economically practical to extract. The largest marinite deposits in the world are in the United States, stretching from the states of Indiana and Ohio through Kentucky and Tennessee.
Oil shales from terrestrial environments formed in shallow bog s and swamp s with low amounts of oxygen. The deposits were mostly the waxy or corky stems of hardy plants. Cannel coal was used primarily as fuel for streetlights and other illumination in the 19th century. Oil shales are classified in three main types based on their mineral content: carbonate-rich shale, siliceous shale, and cannel shale.
Carbonate-rich shale deposits have high amounts of carbonate minerals. Carbonate minerals are made of various forms of the carbonate ion a unique compound of carbon and oxygen. Calcite, for instance, is a carbonate mineral common in carbonate-rich shales. Calcite is a primary component of many marine organisms. Calcite helps form the shells and hard exteriors of oysters, sea stars, and sand dollars.
Plankton, red algae, and sponges are also important sources of calcite. Siliceous shale is rich in the mineral silica, or silicon dioxide.
Siliceous shale formed from organisms such as algae, sponges, and microoganisms called radiolarians. Algae have a cell wall made of silica, while sponges and radiolarians have skeletons or spicule s made of silica.
Siliceous oil shale is sometimes not as hard as carbonate-rich shale, and can more easily be mined. Cannel shale has terrestrial origins, and is often classified as coal. It is made up from the remains of resin, spores, and corky materials from woody plants. It can contain the minerals inertinite and vitrinite.
Cannel shale is rich in hydrogen, and burns easily. People have been using oil shale for thousands of years. Ancient Mesopotamia ns used shale oil to pave roads and caulk ships.
Ancient Mongolians dipped the tips of their arrows in shale oil during battles, sending flaming arrows at their enemies. In the Middle East, sticky shale oil was even a component of decorative mosaic s. The modern shale industry began in the 19th century. This industry used industrial processes to heat shale in order to extract oil.
Shale oil was used for a variety of products, including paraffin wax. The Delaware Basin samples show no dissolved methane other than associated to a recent blowout. Also, based on an evaluation of hydraulic fracturing history, and methods used in the Pavillion Gas Field, it is unlikely that hydraulic fracturing has caused any impacts to the water-supply wells.
Encouragingly, drinking water sources affected by disclosed surface spills could be targeted for treatment and monitoring to protect public health. This result is encouraging, because it implies there is some degree of temporal and spatial separation between injected fluids and drinking water supply.
Environmental Protection Agency : No evidence of widespread water contamination from fracking. District Court, Wyoming : Experts have confirmed no water contamination from fracking. Geological Survey : No water contamination from fracking in West Virginia. Geological Survey : Fracking had no effect on groundwater wells in Arkansas. Even if upward migration from a target formation to potable aquifer were hypothetically possible, the rate of migration would be extremely slow and the resulting dilution of the fluids would be very large…Given the overall implausibility and very high dilution factor, this exposure pathway does not pose a threat to drinking water resources.
Government Accountability Office : The fracking process has not been identified as a cause of groundwater contamination. Neither state has identified hydraulic fracturing as the cause of a single documented groundwater contamination incident. The dSGEIS further observes that regulatory officials from 15 states recently testified that groundwater contamination as a result of the hydraulic fracturing process in the tight formation itself has not occurred.
As indicated in Table 2. The shallow layers are protected from injected fluid by a number of layers of casing and cement — and as a practical matter fracturing operations cannot proceed if these layers of protection are not fully functional.
Good oil-field practice and existing legislation should be sufficient to manage this risk. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Shale oil is a type of unconventional oil found in shale formations that must be hydraulically fractured to extract the oil.
Primary uses include heating oil, marine fuel, and the production of various chemicals. Shale oil can, in fact, refer to two types of oil: crude oil that is found within shale formations or oil that is extracted from oil shale. Shale oil and shale gas formations can be found around the world. Countries with the largest amount of technically recoverable shale oil resources include Russia, the United States, China, Argentina, and Libya.
Shale oil is derived from the similarly-named oil shale , a type of sedimentary rock that traps and retains precursors to oil and gas. Shale oil refers to hydrocarbons that are trapped in formations of shale rock that can be extracted for refining. Shale oil extraction has been made viable thanks to the development of horizontal drilling techniques and hydraulic fracturing fracking , which allows oil and natural gas producers to efficiently extract resources from shale rock and other low-permeability rock formations.
Permeability refers to the ability of fluids and gases to pass through the rock. Meanwhile, the development of fracking techniques has grown rapidly since the s, with the discovery and exploitation of shale formations in the United States throughout the s and s. Producing shale oil from shale rock has been traditionally more expensive than conventional crude oil.
In addition, the process is sometimes criticized for its destructive impact on the environment. Nevertheless, U. Conventional oil production generally refers to the pipe and pump production off a vertical well. This means a hole has been drilled straight down into a deposit and a pump jack is put on it to help pull the deposit to the surface where it can be sent on for further refining. The U. The oil and natural gas industry often uses the term "tight oil" rather than shale oil when estimating production and resources.
This is because tight oil may be extracted from rock formations that, in addition to shale formations, include sandstone and carbonates. Production from tight oil plays reached 7. Shale oil is also different from "oil shale" , which is a type of sedimentary rock that has low permeability and bituminous-like consisting mainly of hydrocarbons solids that can be liquefied during the extraction process.
That is, oil shale is the sedimentary rock formation containing a type of organic matter called kerogen that yields oil and gas.
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