Oilfield In The South Of England

[dave50]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32229794

Good news but how long will it be before the eco-maniacs try to put a stop to it?

[DTCwordfan]

I thought that they said it was a genuine well.....yes in shale as its resident bed but can be reached by conventional horizontal drilling.....

[alavahalf]

Anyone fancy a sad story ... it made me weep !
A year ago I got wind of an risky drilling investment in Surrey. About 8 months ago I bought 150,000 shares in the company who were drilling exploratory holes at Horse Hill .. sadly they said that it was not a viable site, capped the hole and moved onto other things.
I had lost more than 60% of my investment .. not to worry as you win some and lose some !
Yesterday when the 'cat was out of the bag' about the oil find at the same site the shares went up by more than 300% in one day.
I told you it was a sad story !

[EDDIE51]

Reaching it is the easy part, shale oil can not be pumped out.
It has to be freed from the rock. It is like tar not oil. There are 2 ways to extract it, the most efficient way is to mine the shale and then 'cook' the rock in giant ovens called 'retorts' this drives the oil out. I don't suppose they will get permission to turn Surry into one huge open cast mine.
So you are left with underground extraction , you have to heat the undergound shale so that the oil is driven off. High pressure steam injection can be used to heat it.

[DTCwordfan]

You may well be right but this was on the Beeb site

Fracking unnecessary

Most experts believe fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, will be needed to get commercial quantities of oil from the region.
Concerns over fracking led to large-scale protests when Cuadrilla drilled at Balcombe, West Sussex, in 2013.
But UKOG has consistently stated that it is not intending to use fracking, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into rocks at high pressure to liberate the oil and gas trapped within.
It says that the oil at Horse Hill is held in rocks that are naturally fractured, which "gives strong encouragement that these reservoirs can be successfully produced using conventional horizontal drilling and completion techniques".
The company says further drilling and well testing will be needed to prove these initial results."

[DTCwordfan]

Schlumberger was looking at developing microwaves as a means to 'shake' the molecules out - don't know how far this has gone in terms of commercial reality. That could be interesting to apply here - never mind upping the percentage take in conventional wells.

[DTCwordfan]

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/22/business/fi-raytheon22

[EDDIE51]

fracking is a diffrent part of the operation. If the rock was not naturally cracked it would be nessesary to fracture it before extraction could start.
In this case it does look as if that part is not needed. You still have to get the heavy tar out of the rock.

[DTCwordfan]

Oil for the future then when the price is >$100/bbl

[EDDIE51]

Shale oil production needs a price of $90 to $100 just to break even.
So we won't be seeing much of it yet a while, also the % recoverable can be as low as 3% though 25 to 30% is a better estimate.