Tight oil, also called light tight oil, refers to oil trapped in low-porosity shale or siltstone formations located deep underground. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are used to extract the tightly locked oil. These formations have very low permeability and porosity and require advanced drilling techniques. North American tight oil production has grown significantly since 2005 using these methods, contributing to reduced oil imports. Future global production from shale is estimated to remain high through 2050 as more regions develop their shale resources.

1. PRESENTATION ON
TIGHT SHALE
UNDERSTANDING TIGHT OIL

2. TIGHT OIL
Also called oil bearing shale which is “oil locked in
rock”. Most commonly found in shale or siltstone
Limestone a mile below the earths surface.
Horizontal Drilling & Hydraulic Fracturing are the two
basic methods of extracting the oil.
Tight oil is also commonly known as light tight oil as
to differ from shale oil

3. FRACKING HAS A LONG HISTORY IN NORTH AMERICA

4. RESERVOIR DETAILS
 These formation are heterogenous and vary widely over
short distance
 Production from tight oil reservoir requires atleast 15-20% of
natural gas
 These are highly compacted with very low porosity 4-12%
 Permeability of these shale is less than .1 md.
 example- Barnett shale (U.S), Eagle ,Bekken

5. TYPE OF OIL
 Shale oil has resulted in production growth of light sweet crude in
North America
-Shale oil’s are characterized by low resid yields & low sulfur
content
 Light sweet crudes tend to produce resids with poor quality

6. CONVENTIONAL LTO RECOVERY
 Before it was only vertical drilling application
executed on LTO fields which was further on
transform to advance drilling

7. ADVANCED DRILLING FOR LTO RECOVERY
 Commonly horizontal drilling
coupled with multi-stage
fracturing is used to access
these tight shale reservoirs.
 Multi lateral pilot well
technique are used for
recovery.

8. TECHNOLOGIES EMPLOYED FOR RECOVERY
HORIZONTAL DRILLING
 The purpose of horizontal drilling is to
increase the contact between the reservoir
and the wellbore.

9. HYDRAULIC FACTURING
This process applies pressure by pumping fluids into the
wellbore
which opens existing, or creates new fracture or pathway in the
reservoir.

10. TIGHT OIL CHALLENGES
 Multiple-stage fracking can require
millions of gallons of water.
 The frack fluids may contain
chemicals that have become the
subject of public concern.
 Flaring has been a source of
environmental criticism.

11. TIGHT OIL CHALLENGES
 OFF SHORE FIELD
 The construction of thousands of well pads and truck traffic
for the drilling and fracking of thousands of wells:
–Increased airborne dust
–Adversely affect the “viewshed”

12. TIGHT OIL SOLUTIONS
 Increased use of technologies to drill multiple wells from a
single pad:
– Reduces the overall footprint of drilling operations.
 Development and application of environmentally friendly dust
control materials.

13. TIGHT OIL SOLUTIONS
 Development and application of frack fluid recycling.
 Reformulation of frack fluids to be more environmentally
friendly.
 Utilization of flare gas.
•Infrastructure is catching up.
•On-site and off-site uses for gas are developing.

14. WORLD SCENARIO
Production has grown to over 3M bpd
North American Tight oil production (Jan 2005 – feb 2014)
MBPD

15. WORLD ESTIMATE
Shale Oil reserves found throughout the world

16. 7 KEY SHALE PRODUCING REGIONS
Since 2007 – Shale Oil
production
from these regions responsible
for:
95% of domestic oil production
growth
100% of the domestic natural
gas
production growth

17. COUNTRIES
Russia: 75 billion barrels
United State: 48 to 58 billion barrels
China: 32 billion barrels
Argentina: 27 billion barrels
Libya: 26 billion barrels
Venezuela: 13 billion barrels
Mexico: 13 billion barrels
Pakistan: 9 billion barrels
Canada: 9 billion barrels
Indonesia: 8 billion barrels

18. INDIAN SCENARIO
Basins of preliminary interest identified by Indian geologists
are the Cambay Basin in Gujarat, the Assam-Arakan basin
in northeast India, and the Gondwana Basin in central India.

19. INDIAN SCENARIO
A production of 70-90MMTOE of oil and gas is
envisage from this tight reservoir by 2030
In Mizoram ONGC has discovered non commercial
gas in a tough and geologically challenging field
A comprehensive study is required for all explored and
unexplored basins to bring on compression track

20. FUTURE FULLFILLMENT
2020 North
American
tight oil production
could be over --
2,000,000 bpd.
2050 North
American tight oil
production
could still be over
2,000,000 bpd.

21. Shale
Oil
Oil
Sands

22. EPIC CLASS
CHEVRON
GEV GROUP
RANGE RESOURCES
ENCANE
QUICK SLIVER

23. CONCLUSION
Shale oil development has driven large
growth in North American crude oil production
New production is light sweet crude
This has displaced historic imports of similar
crude grades
This has changed the way crude goes to
market

24. REFERENCESNATURAL GAS ENGINEERING: ARPIT
VERMA
IEA (INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY)
WORLD ENERGY OUTLOOK
SCIENTIFIC TECHINICAL JOURNAL :
ESTONIAN ACADEMY PUBLISHER
WORLD ENERGY RESOURCES SURVEY
2013
FUEL FIX
TIGHT RESERVOIR: AN OVER VIEW IN
INDIAN CONTEXT BY TARUN KUMAR AND
ASHUTOSH

25. “Future lies with in the tightness of shale
source”