For at least a decade, MDN has brought you stories about refracs, also called re-entries and re-completions, where a driller re-enters an existing and declining well to access more rock and pump new life out of it (see our refrac stories here). Last July, we brought you an article about refracs, detailing the two main…
Hold that decline curve! Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have done “extensive data mining” and analysis of 20,000 shale gas wells. In a paper published in the journal Applied Energy titled “The shale gas revolution: Barriers, sustainability, and emerging opportunities” (full copy below), Los Alamos researchers say that refracking existing wells with new technology…
Every now and again it’s fun to delve into some of the technical aspects of drilling a Marcellus (and Utica) Shale well. We pick up on some of those particulars from a survey conducted by Hart Energy. Hart surveyed Marcellus and Utica drillers and found that, unsurprisingly, what has worked continues to work: When a…
Frack and refrack? Yep. CONSOL Energy started drilling Marcellus Shale wells in 2009. In fact, they drilled half a dozen wells in Greene County at the time. Five years ago is an eternity in the shale drilling business. Knowledge and experience has expanded maybe a hundred-fold since that time. With every new well CONSOL and…
NOTE: This story has been corrected. The SPE meeting was not in Horseheads, NY but was in Carnegie, PA. Sorry for the error! In early May, Mike Vincent, an engineer and consultant with Insight Consulting, was the guest presenter at the Society of Petroleum Engineers local chapter meeting hosted in Carnegie, PA. Mike had a…
Refracs, also called re-entries and re-completions, re-enter an existing and declining well to access more rock and pump new life out of it. Refracs are becoming a much more common practice for operators. There are two main types of refracs. While refracs are mainly used in oil wells, there are times when they are used…
A team led by Penn State researchers has developed a new tool that can estimate the emissions potential of shale wells after they are no longer active. The researchers claim drillers can analyze their own drill cuttings (samples of shale rock) to determine how much potential there is for methane leakage after a well is…
Is shale energy beginning to peter out? We’re beginning to see stories in oil and gas publications about how the best locations to drill for shale oil and gas are gone, and the less desirable, less productive locations are now left. We don’t know if that’s true, but it seems people whose multi-billion-dollar businesses depend…
If you’ve read MDN for any length of time you know we’ve preached the gospel of “lower for longer”–that natural gas prices will remain low, quite low, for a long period of time. How low? Likely in the $2/Mcf range (or just under, or just over). Gone are the days of $3 and $4 gas–at…
Anti-fossil fuelers are once again riding their high horse “demanding” that the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County block any more shale drilling on county-owned property located near Beaver Run Reservoir. Even though CNX’s shale drilling has been going on there since 2011 with zero impacts on the reservoir and its water supply.
CNX Resources say they think they know why a Utica well they were fracking in Westmoreland County, PA suddenly lost pressure as they were fracking it–with gas escaping into nearby conventional wells.
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Jennifer Huntington: The forgotten woman we can’t forget; Luzerne County taking applications for Marcellus Shale grants; South Texas feedgas demand ramping up with Corpus Christi LNG; American oil is coming to flood the market. Or is it?; The other shales;…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: PJM capacity auction reflects impact of cheap Marcellus/Utica gas; Vinton County, OH quake probably not fracking-related, state says; grant for CNG trucks in Trumbull County; what Chesapeake is cooking up in the Haynesville Shale; how American shale…
As previously reported, liberal Pennsylvania House of Representatives Democrat Pam Synder has now introduced a bill (HB 1283, copy below) to “clear up” what the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) is a loophole in the Act 13 law that may allow some drillers to avoid paying impact fees (i.e. drilling taxes) on some Marcellus Shale…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
For some time we’ve told you that drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, as well as other shale plays, have been hammering oilfield services companies on price. Oilfield services companies are companies like Sclumberger (largest such company in the world) and Halliburton (second largest in the world) and Baker Hughes (fifth largest in the world, being gobbled…