Some Truth about Oil Shales......

[Stewy]

(12-29-2016, 01:19 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I always thought of oil shale as a product that was mined, but since you are talking about drilling wells I assume you are talking about hydrofracking.

Or are there other ways to get oil from oil shale by drilling a well?

The price of oil produced from hydrofracking will never be low enough to pay for the earthquakes caused by it.  People will allow a little dirty air or water in exchange for cheap oil and jobs, but they won't accept earthquakes.

As this is not a thread about Fracking, I will not respond to this except to say the following:

Frac'ing isn't going away.  Do not delude yourself.  When done improperly or negligently, it needs to be corrected or stopped.  However, fracturing of rock has been and will continue to happen as a regular part of the oil and gas business.  This induced EQ problem ismost specifically happening in Oklahoma, where a long history of what is likely improper frac'ing technique or operator ngligence has caused a problem.  In the Appalachian basin various kinds of frac'ing has been going on for 70+ years, and there is no long history of induced earthquakes (though i think there are some up in west PA associated with the Marcellus).  Same for East Texas, West Texas, the Texas and Louisiana gulf coasts the entire North Slope of Alaska producing fields, the Bakken in Montana and Canada, the Eagleford in South Texas and pretty much every basin in the world where there are tight reservoirs that need a little help.  Frac'ing happens EVERYWHERE without inducing earthquakes, which makes Oklahoma the anomaly, not the rule.  Is it unique geology and reservoir conditions or oil company negligence?  Probably a little from column A and a little from column B.

But people who think this is a major problem and a technique that needs to be universally stopped are uninformed as to its long and SUCCESSFUL history and massively widespread use without incident.

Also, there are multiple types of fracturing, which work better in different kinds of rocks. 

Hydro-Fracs - come in several forms
Foam Propant
Acid - used in Carbonate reservoirs usually with no propant
Oil Propant
Water Propant

Air Fracs - using high pressure air to induce fracs (common in Appalachia)

Ballistic Fracs
- Drop a bomb in the hole (nitro glycerin) - seriously
- Commonly used in highly mobile shales, where shales just ooze around propants.  Most common completion technique today in the Devonian Shale of the Appalachian basin