Furnished with the most up-to-date technologies, two U.S. firms are profiting handsomely and expecting rampant growth by lowering the utilization of a lot of gallons of water in oil shale production and cutting CO2 emissions in oil fields.
The stream-saving technology, propane gas gel, was patented by energy giant Chevron and commercialized by Gasfrac Energy Services, a Canadian company.
“We’ve talked to companies all over the world and a few in China that are keen on our technology,” said Kyle Ward, marketing director for Gasfrac, that may soon apply the newest technology at nearly 900 drillable locations owned by Black Brush Oil & Gas LP at Texas’s vast Eagle Ford formation.
“Results from my first well with Gasfrac has seen boring at a sustainable rate weeks prior to when the normal water fracturing, so we are seeing huge savings on disposal of fracturing fluids,” said Phil Mezey, Co-CEO of BlackBrush.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has never given any reply to the cash-saving gel, along with environmental authorities are cautious to endorse a technology that’s completely new.
“The basic concept, less water in the first place and fewer contamination, is really a positive development,” said Jonathan Scott, Colorado communications director for Water that is clean Action, the largest U.S. grass-root environmental group focusing on water, energy and environmental health with more than a million members.
The standard hydraulic fracturing method, or “fracking,” required 6million gallons (22,712 tonnes) of water per well, even though the new technology would eliminate the use water and clean-up costs.
Widespread using this new technology could benefit gas and oil fields across the country, specially in Big apple state in which a moratorium was imposed really following the drilling process was considered to threaten regional water supplies.
Gasfrac first used the technique in commercial setting four in the past possesses since fracked over 1,300 wells in Canada. The U.S. contracts could spell explosive growth to the company.
“We have been finding your way through this for decades,” said Ward. “Now we’re extremely busy educating and training U.S. companies.”
The Gasfrac technology pumps a thick gel made from propane into the ground two miles (3.2 km) deep, instead of fliers and business cards designed to use a variety of water, sand, and chemicals to extract propane reserves from deep shale formations.
Once injected deep underground, the gel reverts to vapor, and returns for the surface in recoverable form.
The technique was originally designed to help the performance of low-pressure wells, but is specially appealing right now to companies working with water shortages in drought-stricken Texas.
While Gasfrac’s technology addresses oil shale fracturing beneath ground, a Montana-based company has become capturing skin tightening and fumes increasingly being burned off above ground.
Gas to Green (G2G) was formed by career oil man Brian Cebull, whose company installed a miniature-gas plant in a trailer that is certainly delivered to an oil well to capture, liquefy and store gas emissions.
“We’re turning a waste stream in to a profit stream,” Cebull said, whose company is bracing for rapid climb caused by sought after demand.
For instance, North Dakota has 4,377 wells linked with a pipeline, making the wells can access the emissions-cut technology, leaving another 1,094 wells waiting to be installed, every week 70 new wells are approved, said Justin Kringstad, director in the North Dakota Pipeline Authority located in Bismarck.
Before wells are connected to the pipeline, emissions are burned off, an expensive waste plus a trouble for the surroundings.
North Dakota is flaring 100 million cubic feet of gas everyday, enough to heat 500 , 000 homes to get a day, in line with a different York Times report last fall.
The flaring releases about two million tons of skin tightening and in the atmosphere yearly, equal to that released by 384,000 cars and also a medium-sized coal-fired power plant.
“Anybody driving over the oil fields who sees the burn offs might say, ‘could possibly problem here that needs to be fixed,'” Cebull said.
Coal and oil production in Western United States is booming and 150,000 jobs were created in 2011, in accordance with a petroleum industry study.
The newest technology can greatly decrease carbon emissions and effectively protect local environment.