DOE funds unconventional oil & gas research

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a total of $30 million in costshare funding for six projects researching the improved recovery of unconventional oil and gas. DOE selected field projects involving unconventional plays with less than 50,000 barrels per day of current production. The idea is to help master the development of these types of plays, and to help position the United Sates as a global leader in unconventional oil and gas development technologies, while also protecting air and water quality, DOE said.

One project involves research into new high-tech cement for preventing offshore spills and leakages at extreme high temperatures, high pressures and in corrosive conditions.

Another project will conduct experiments in a hydraulic fracture test site in the Delaware basin portion of the Permian basin of western Texas. The idea is to evaluate well completions, design optimization and environmental impacts.

One project will evaluate techniques for enhanced oil recovery through the refracturing of wells.

A fourth project will investigate robust pipeline coatings for the prevention of gas hydrate deposits in subsea oil pipelines.

Another project will investigate how to improve oil recovery from the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale in eastern Louisiana, a clay-rich unconventional resource holding an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil but subject to poor production performance.

The sixth project will investigate various well completion strategies for a shale formation in the Nora gas field in southwest Virginia — part of the objective is to characterize the geology and potential of deep pay zones of Cambrian formations in Central Appalachia.

Under the cost-share arrangements, a total of $24.4 million in non-DOE funding will be contributed to the projectsl.

Alan Bailey