The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Energy => Topic started by: corbe on June 10, 2023, 03:18:27 pm
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ExxonMobil: New Fracking Technology Can Double Oil Output
By Alex Kimani - Jun 04, 2023, 6:00 PM CDT
U.S. shale producers have been struggling to ramp up production in 2023.
Oil major ExxonMobil bets that through technological advances, shale producers can manage to double crude output from their existing wells.
While refracturing has never really gone mainstream, the technique is seeing higher adoption as drilling technology improves, aging oilfields erode output, and companies try to do more with less.
The U.S. shale revolution dramatically reshaped the world energy markets. The shale boom was one of the most impressive growth stories, from take off in 2008 to the Permian stealing the mantle from Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar as the world’s highest producing oilfield in a little over a decade. Overall, Reuters has estimated that, “U.S. petroleum production is at least 10-11 million bpd higher than it would have been without horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.’’
Unfortunately, the shale patch has lately been struggling to ramp up production due to a litany of challenges including pressure from investors to boost returns, limited equipment and workers as well as a lack of capital.
But shale giant ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) is now betting that shale producers can double crude output from their existing wells by employing novel fracking technologies.
“There’s just a lot of oil being left in the ground. Fracking’s been around for a really long time, but the science of fracking is not well understood,” Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said Thursday at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference. Woods has revealed that Exxon is currently working on two specific areas to improve fracking. First off, the company is trying to frack more precisely along the well so that more oil-soaked rock gets drained. It’s also looking for ways to keep the fracked cracks open longer so as to boost the flow of oil.
Shale Refracs
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/ExxonMobil-New-Fracking-Technology-Can-Double-Oil-Output.html (https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/ExxonMobil-New-Fracking-Technology-Can-Double-Oil-Output.html)
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:2popcorn:
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Not sure where the writer was, but we were drilling and fraccing Bakken wells in Elm Coulee Field in 2000. By 2008, drilling was going well in Bakken in the North Dakota part of the Williston Basin, and people were looking hard at the Three Forks formation as well.
Refracs and multistage fracs have been de rigeur around these parts for a while.