Essay on tight gas resources all over the world
This essay will be discussing the tight gas as an important hydrocarbon resource in the global energy mix today and in the future period also. It focuses on the estimates of technically recoverable resources (TRR) of tight gas around the world. The natural gas plays a very important role in the hydrocarbon value chain and represents 21% in the global primary energy mix in 2013. It is expected to rise to 22% in 2020 and 24% in 2040 as per the World Energy Council (WEC) report. Currently there are UN projects in the world’s population are likely to grow from the current 7.6 billion to reach 8.6 billion in 2030 and 9.8 billion in 2050. The British Petroleum has estimated the global primary energy demand to increase by 30% in 2035 and natural gas to grow by 1.6% p.a. between 2015 and 2035 . The tight gas is the natural gas which is contained in the low-permeability sandstone and carbonate reservoirs rocks. The tight gas sandstones are “natural extensions of conventional sandstone reservoirs”. The advance extraction technologies such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling are used to develop tight gas to produce at an economic rate. These are the known resources which are found in the USA, Canada, Russia, UK and China with resources of about 210 T-cm, concentrated mainly in North America, Latin America and Asia-pacific regions.. However, this appears to be largely speculative estimate of tight oil.
The International Energy Agency shows the reports of a recoverable estimate at 76 T-cm and the detailed mean estimate of the remaining TRR of tight gas by utilizing data from a variety of sources. The estimates of the remaining technically recoverable resources of tight gas which have sum of 54.2 T-cm. This is more realistic as it encompasses estimates from more regions compared to other sources.
The United States spearheaded the production of tight gas and is currently the world’s largest producer of tight gas. In the year 2012, tight gas represents 26% of the total US natural gas production. In the recent study which shows that production from tight gas production will be the second-largest contributor to natural gas growth, accounting for about 20% of total U.S. production by 2040. The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has the estimates the TRR of tight gas from known US tight gas accumulations at about 5Tcm.
In Canada, tight gas production has contributed somewhat to offset of the declining conventional production. In 2014, tight gas accounted for 47% of total Canadian natural gas production (National Resources Canada, 2016 cited in: National Energy Board (NEB), 2015) . The China’s has tight gas resources which are mainly distributed in five basins: Ordos, Sichuan, Tarim, Songliao and Bohai Gulf basins. The tight gas production is becoming increasingly significant as the country shifts from a dominant coal-based energy to cleaner sources of energy. The reports that as production from tight gas reservoirs reached 31Bcm in 2014 (25% of total gas production). In 2010, 16.9% of the 95 Bcm of gas production came from tight gas. It is estimated a GIP range from 8.4 T-cm to 110 Tcm and a TRR range from 3.0 – 28 Tcm. At the end, the US holds the largest of global TRR of tight gas, followed by China and Canada. Many other countries including Brazil, Algeria, Egypt, Australia and various European countries are also intensifying efforts to initiate development of tight gas reservoirs.
The potential endowment of tight gas is a good indicator that their efforts should prove fruitful in the long run.
Bibliography
- Aguilra, R.F. & Harding, T.G. (2012).World Petroleum Council Guide to Unconventional Gas.London, England: International Systems and Communications Limited (ISC).
- Ahmed, U. & Meehan, N. (2016).Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources Exploitation and Development.Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press
- British Petroleum.(2017). BP Energy Outlook 2017 Edition.Retrieved from
- doi:10.2118/103356-JPT
- Holditch, A.S.(2006). Tight Gas Sands.Society of Petroleum Engineers, 58(06), 86-93.
- https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/energy-economics/energy-outlook-2017/bp-energy-outlook-2017.pdf.
- International Energy Agency.(2012). Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas.Retrieved from: http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2012/goldenrules/WEO2012_GoldenRulesReport.pdf
- Islam, M.R. (2014). Unconventional Gas Reservoirs: Evaluation, Appraisal, and Development. Waltham, MA: Gulf Professional Publishing
- Jadwa Investment. (2013). The Outlook for Unconventional Oil & Gas Production: Focus on Tight Oil & Shale Gas Production Impact on Saudi Arabia. Retrieved from http://www.jadwa.com/en/media/get/20131217_The-Outlook-for-Unconventional-Oil-Gas-Production-Full-report.pdf.
- Kennedy, R. L., Knecht, W. N., &Georgi, D. T. (2012, April 8-11). Comparisons and Contrasts of Shale Gas and Tight Gas Developments, North American Experience and Trends. SPE-160855-MS, presented at the SPE Saudi Arabia Section Technical Symposium and Exhibition, Al-khobar, Saudi Arabia. doi:10.2118/160855-MS
- Lau, H.C. & Yu, M. (2013, March 26-28). Production Technology Challenges of Tight and Shale Gas Production in China. IPTC-17096, presented at the International Petroleum Technology Conference, Beijing, China. doi:10.2523/IPTC-17096-MS
- Ma,Y., Moore,W.R., Gomez, E., Clark, W.J., & Zhang, Y. (2015). Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources Handbook.Waltham, MA: Elsevier Science & Technology
- McGlade, C., Speirs, J. and Sorrell, S. (2013).Unconventional gas – A review of regional and global resource estimates.Energy, 55(0), 571–584. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.048.
- Melikoglu, M., 2014. Shale gas: Analysis of its role in the global energy market. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 37, pp.460-468.
- Ministry of Health. (2014). Ebola: Information for the public. Retrieved from: http://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/diseases-and-illnesses/ebola-information-public
- National Energy Board.(2017). Canada’s Energy Future 2017 – Supply and Demand Projections to 2040 (Energy Futures 2017). Retrieved from: http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/ftr/2017/2017nrgftr-eng.pdf
- Natural Resources Canada.(2016). Exploration and Production of Shale and Tight Resources. Retrieved from: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/sources/shale-tight-resources/17677
- com (2018), Algeria eyes return to controversial shale gas exploration, viewed: 15th November, 2017https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/algeria-eyes-return-to-controversial-shale-gas-exploration-20171002
- United Nations.(2017).Retrieved from :https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html
- United States Energy Information Administration.(2017). Annual Energy Outlook 2017 with projections to 2050. Retrieved from :https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/0383(2017).pdf
- Vidic, R.D., Brantley, S.L., Vandenbossche, J.M., Yoxtheimer, D. and Abad, J.D., 2013.Impact of shale gas development on regional water quality. Science, 340(6134), p.1235009.
- Wang, J., Mohr, S., Feng, L., Liu, H. and Tverberg, G. (2016). Analysis of resource potential for China’s unconventional gas and forecast for its long-term production growth.Energy Policy, Elsevier, 88, 389-401.
- World Energy Council. (2016). World Energy Resources: Natural Gas. Retrieved from https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WEResources_Natural_Gas_2016.pdf
Previous answers to this question
This is a preview of an assignment submitted on our website by a student. If you need help with this question or any assignment help, click on the order button below and get started. We guarantee authentic, quality, 100% plagiarism free work or your money back.