Unconventional Gas Production

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Unconventional Gas Production According to IEA, unconventional gas is difficult to technologically or more expensive to produce and it is divided into coal bed methane (CBM), tight gas and shale gas. Gas shales are fine grained, organic rich sedimentary rock. Exploitation of shale deposits proceeds through the discovery stage, drilling and reservoir evaluation to production. Shale gas is a dry gas composed of 90% methane, produced from shale formations that functions as both source for the gas and reservoir. Shale plays has low permeability that limit the flow of gas. Natural gas in shale deposits is held in unconnected pores and natural fractures. The classification of shale as unconventional is as a result of it low permeability. There are three factors that make shale gas production economically viable and these are improvements in hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling and more importantly the rapid increases in prices of natural gas. Shale Gas Technologies Horizontal/Directional Drilling First drill in Texas in the 1930’s and the technology has developed to become an industry standard practice. The horizontal drilling can reduce the environmental impact footprint and significantly reduce the number wells pads, pipeline routes, access roads and production facilities required. The horizontal drilling is achieved by drilling vertically downward into the shale formation and then directional drilling is used to create gradual 90° curve to get an horizontal wellbore as it reaches the shale. Hydraulic Fracturing This consists of injecting water, proppant (sand granules) and chemicals at high pressure into a shale formation and this causes the formation to fracture. After the required fracture, the proppant fills the fracture to... ... middle of paper ... ...jor oil net importer such as Ghana might see boost in its GDP. Lower oil price could create long-term benefits for business that depend on oil or industries such the petrochemicals, heavy industry airlines and others. Another benefit for the shale gas boom is its relatively low CO2 emission. This will help Ghana achieve IPCC GHG emission target by shifting more to gas as primary energy source. The emergence of shale gas has the potential to represent a strategic change for Ghana. This could influence the dynamics of geopolitics with other producing nations. Ghana as an emerging oil producing nation and its dependency of oil revenue for budget support, it needs to industrialise its economy to avoid the Dutch disease. Ghana needs to invest in the agriculture sector and manufacturing sectors since there is a potential decrease in oil revenue per the various outlooks.

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