Using natural gas to push up oil.

I've had another of my fantastical, hypothetical ideas again and things seemed a little slow and a might bit dull on here lately, even in Ohio, so I thought I'd throw it up for conjecture.  This is a fantasy so get ready for a lot of "What ifs."  What if a large resevoir of oil existed deep beneath a shallower layer of shale containing natural gas under high pressure.  What if the price of natural gas was pretty low, low enough to make drilling for it in the deep shale formation barely worth the trouble.  What if the drilling company pushed a well all of the way down through the gas bearing shale into the oil resevoir and then plugged the upper end.  Next, they might drill a well down into the oil bearing resevoir and allow the pressure of the natural gas to enhance or help the flow of the oil out of the resevoir.  (I think something like this is kind of done with hot water or steam in the Canada tar sands.)  Well, there it is.  Put on your boxing gloves and punch holes in it.

Views: 568

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tim Tarr on October 5, 2013 at 5:33am

What if a large resevoir of oil existed deep beneath a shallower layer of shale containing natural gas under high pressure.  What if the price of natural gas was pretty low, low enough to make drilling for it in the deep shale formation barely worth the trouble.

Let's say a known oil reservoir ("depleted" <20% recovery) is above a high pressure gas formation.

A well is drilled down to gas reservoir and plugged at top of old oil reservoir. After a predetermined time open those depleted wells and BINGO old reservoir is re-pressurized. Get an additional 5-20% of that oil. It's called (EOR) Enhanced oil recovery. No reason that I can think of that would prevent what you suggest. Just a question of is there oil below that gas and the characteristics of that reservoir rock.

There are also ongoing studies for Carbon Sequestration (CO2) and EOR. Squeeze even more oil and gas out of that old formation or some new ones (Marcellus)

RSS

© 2024   Created by Keith Mauck (Site Publisher).   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service