Ways To Reach Billions Of Barrels Of Oil Trapped In Old Wells

27 Comments on "Ways To Reach Billions Of Barrels Of Oil Trapped In Old Wells"

Hello on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:29 am 



That is the sad thing about technology. There seems to be always another trick up the sleeve.

When will we finally hit PO?

ghung on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 8:18 am 



WTI currently below $39/barrel. Not sure how many of these techniques can be supported at that price.

yellowcanoe on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 8:47 am 



I’d put my money on Rockman telling us that none of these techniques are actually new!

jesusofsuburbia on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:03 am 



Whenever something oil-related is posted in the newsfeed, I just assume he is going to disagree with it.

WWRT? What would Rockman think?

He should make bracelets and other merchandise.

Oh, and LOL.

jesusofsuburbia on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:04 am 



That’s not a slight, BTW. It’s just something that makes me chuckle.

shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:18 am 



“WTI currently below $39/barrel. Not sure how many of these techniques can be supported at that price.”

WTI just hit $38.60; what the world needs is to invest in more oil for which there is no market. Theoretically it is possible to get all the oil that is left behind in a formation. To do that would require inputting a huge amount of energy. Since the world’s problem is energy, not oil (there are huge deposits of hydrocarbons remaining) this is like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out! Reserves are the key to success in the petroleum industry, whether or not they are of any use to the economy is completely beside the point?

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

rockman on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 10:22 am 



Actually that plasma pulse is a new tech. So new that I’ve yet to see a single DOCUMENTED CASE of any company producing a meaningful amount of PROFITABLE oil using it. Maybe they have had some promising tests. OTOH I don’t really care much about those. I need to see at least 2 or 3 years of sustained production along with the actual cost to develop any confidence.

The Rockman has tested a variety of new “miracle” technologies…including his idea about drilling horizontal wells in a “depleted” conventional reservoir. BTW that first well initially flowed 300 bopd and no water…so far has made 65,000 bo. Most “new technologies” didn’t work but a small number have to some degree so I never piss on any idea upfront. I just wait until some fool spends $millions proving a new tech doesn’t work. LOL.

twocats on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 10:35 am 



on a technical level its almost certainly feasible. They already break apart kidney stones with a SIMILAR shock wave treatment. Short’s point about energy requirements could be important: would a generator be enough to charge such a device. But if you are talking about matching resonance of rock filled substance it might take a lot less energy than you might imagine – think of a swing set it just takes a little pulse on each backswing and before you know it your kid is flying high.

rockman on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 10:44 am 



Cat – A valid point. But there have been relatively cheap methods of breaking the rock apart for decades. Search “Stim Gun” if interested. The problem isn’t so much breaking the rock but creating permeable pathways for the oil to flow out of the rock. Fracs do a great job of breaking the rock. But without the proppants pumped with the frac creating those permeable pathways the tech is worthless. Your kidney stone example fits that problem: they can break the stones up. But what if you couldn’t piss the small fragments out? They might be smaller but they’re still stuck in the kidney.

twocats on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 10:45 am 



in some of the gobbledygook they talked about this “compression wave resulting in a rise in temperature in the plasma channel” by which I think he means they are trying to move all the liquid in a well and thus raise the temperature. possible?

GregT on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 11:39 am 



“Now, drillers are using everything from electrically-induced shock waves to acid to bring up oil left behind by conventional drilling.”

In other words. The DREGS. They’re doing their best to scrape the bottom of the barrel guys, while still being profitable. Conventional oil has already peaked, we’re already on the downward slope of depletion.

shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 11:40 am 



“by which I think he means they are trying to move all the liquid in a well and thus raise the temperature.”

It takes 154 BTU to raise the temperature of 1 barrel, 1 °F. Reducing the oil’s viscosity enough to make it flow could be rather problematic. Without digging out some oil viscosity graphs, I would guess at least 20°. With losses we are likely looking at something better than 10,000 BTU per barrel, and maybe more. Iffy would be the best guess.

shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 11:54 am 



If it worked, at all, it would depend on whether the formation was water wet, or oil wet. This is likely to be, at best, a technique that would work for a few reserves here or there. It seems very unlikely that it will be any kind of panacea. As demonstrated above it’s not going to be cheap.

rockman on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 1:04 pm 



Cat – “…by which I think he means they are trying to move all the liquid in a well and thus raise the temperature. possible?” I don’t know the specifics about his techniques but it could be possible. OTOH there have been a variety of “thermal recovery methods” that have produced commercially for decades. But back to the same problem: as long as you’re talking about shales it doesn’t matter how much you heat the oil or lower its viscosity: it still requires very permeable pathways to flow into a wellbore. Go back to the basics of frac’ng: the objective isn’t to breaks up the rock. The goal is to extend manmade fractures away from the wellbore to intersect existing NATURAL FRACTURES. That’s where the oil comes from and not the shale rock itself per se. The permeability of the shale rock, regardless of how fractured it becomes, can’t flow a meaningful amount of oil. It took millions of years for the oil to move from the shale matrix into those natural fractures. This also why horizontal wells are much better producers then vertical ones: the natural fractures tend to be more vertical. Thus the odds of hitting a natural fracture with a hz well are much higher: more fractures the greater the oil flow. And by frac’ng a well we reach out to natural fractures not cut by the original hz hole.

BTW this also explains why the decline rate in all fracture production is so high: the actual volume of the natural fractures being drained is much smaller than the volume of the entire shale formation. A fractures are much more permeable then a typical conventional reservoir. IOW a relatively small volume drained by a very efficient pathway = high decline rate/depletion.

twocats on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 2:22 pm 



very good explanations rock, thanks. yeah, in their little promo video they say the sediment will be just flushed away like so many calgon bubbles or something. Didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence. And to confirm the kidney analogy, you are correct the procedure only works on fairly tiny stones, and passing them is still one of the biggest complications. I think we’ll have to file this under “fusion energy”.

rockman on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 2:46 pm 



cat – I’ve seen a number of ideas that looked very foolish. But every now and then one works. Same thing for different “black box” exploration techniques. Black box is a rather derogatory tag. But I field tested one that absolutely proved it worked (under the proper conditions). Yet 98% of the geologists wouldn’t tolerate my showing them the test let alone believe it.

Same thing with the results of my hz well: the majority of reservoir engineers would call me a liar before they would even consider reviewing the data that proved beyond any shadow of a doubt I was right. I would love to publish in a peer review site but being a private company that doesn’t want anyone else to understand how I did what we did but I can’t. Otherwise the title of my paper would be: “I Told You Assholes So”. LOL

So while I have my doubts I’m always willing to look at DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE no matter how stupid the idea strikes me first.

Dutchwayne on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 3:02 pm 



Fracking is still used on existing wells and all of the techniques mentioned go back year if not decades. What is different is wells that were abandon up to a decades ago are getting fracked and treated. Often they are performing well and the return is high. It costs next to nothing to re-treat the wells and get production up again.

shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 3:26 pm 



“What is different is wells that were abandon up to a decades ago are getting fracked and treated.”

The industry has been refracing conventional vertical wells for the last century. Refracing horizontal shale has not worked very well with an average increase in URR of only about 3%. When prices hit $100 there was quit a bit of interest in rejuvenating old wells. Now that the price has declined that has probably abated.

rockman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 6:14 am 



“It costs next to nothing to re-treat the wells”. Well, cheaper then drilling a new well and then frac’ng it. A frac job on an old well can still cost several $million. But I just did a small frac on an existing vertical well that only cost $350,000.

Fra’ng has been around not just for years or a few decades: for more then half a century. There have been refinements over time but the basic process is the same/ The only new angle was the development of hz drilling more than 20 years ago.

shortonoil on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:09 am 



“Fra’ng has been around not just for years or a few decades: for more then half a century.

In the 1880’s, out there on the Panhandle, they were dropping bags of gunpowder down wells to frac them. We can blame all this fracing mania on the Texans lol.

JN2 on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:35 am 



Rock, how hz are hz wells? Is it possible to drill them (a degree or two) uphill so that the oil flows downhill?

rockman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:45 am 



JN – Actually that’s how it’s intentionally done in many wells. Essentially a hz well isn’t a hz well per se. What it really means is that the “hz wellbore” stays in the same formation its entire length. It might be at 90 degrees or at 75 degrees from the vertical but it’s still considered “horizontal”. If it’s at 75 degrees and enters the top of the formation and then exits out the bottom we refer to it as a “directional” or “high angle” well bore.

rockman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:46 am 



Or at 110 degrees from the vertical. IOW dipping back towards the vertical section of the well.

matthewl99 on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 10:35 am 



Take Michael C. Rupperts cog up with some comments about techno-fixs into consideration, we keep coming up with these new “easier”ways to fulfill our greed for energy. yes fracking is efficient at draining these old pre-tapped wells, however it also poisons our planet and it is a shame that it is legal in so many countries and states.
Look at ethanol yes, its a substitute for gasoline, however it takes more energy to produce then we get from burning it.It takes millions of acres of fertile land to crow corn and other starches and thousand os gallons of water to irrigate that corn, then they refine it to ethanol, then you put that in your car which is very bad for the engine and clogs the carburetor and also separates into its other states if it is not mixed frequently, my point is our energy crisis is like cancer, all these little tricks we find is like chemo it works in the short run like a bandaid but ultimately won’t fix the growing tumor of our hydro carbon energy consumption.

JN2 on Wed, 9th Dec 2015 1:03 am 



Thanks for explaining, Rock.

GregT on Wed, 9th Dec 2015 1:15 am 



Very good post matthew.

Kenz300 on Wed, 9th Dec 2015 9:54 am 



Oklahoma Earthquakes: Bombshell Doc Reveals Big Oil’s Tight Grip on Politicians and Scientists

http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/09/earthquake-state/