Government gets into shale gas research with a bang

Houston (Platts)--1Nov2011/653 pm EDT/2253 GMT

US government scientists are experimenting with the use of explosive charges to fracture deep underground formations to stimulate the production of shale gas, a researcher said at the World Energy Council Business Forum in Houston Tuesday.

Julio Friedmann, carbon management program leader at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said the lab is studying the effectiveness of explosive detonations in creating fractures in oil- and gas-bearing formations as an alternative to hydraulic fracturing, the well-completion technique most commonly employed to free these energy resources from solid rock.

"We blow up a lot of rocks," he said. The experimental fracturing technique involves putting "tens of kilograms" of explosive materials down a wellbore and detonating the charges in a series of explosions to open cracks in the rocks to let the oil or gas flow up the well.

The biggest advantage is that, unlike with conventional hydraulic fracturing, it does not require the underground injection of millions of gallons of water and chemical additives. However a large disadvantage to the use of explosives comes from the energy industry itself, Friedmann said.

"People don't want to use them," because they fear the explosions would damage the integrity of the well bore, he said.

For this reason, the technology might be most useful for recompleting an existing well, rather in a newly drilled well. In addition, researches are testing "fit for purpose" charges that direct the force of the explosion outward, away from the wellbore itself, Friedmann said.

The environmental impact of such underground explosions is "pretty benign," in that it "uses almost no water," and therefore doesn't involve all the water usage issues inherent in hydro-fracking, he said.

"Water use is big and it complicates things," raising issues such as where the water used in conventional frack jobs will come from and how it is disposed of after usage.

Still, there is a big question as to whether an American public, which already has expressed grave doubts about more widely used fracturing techniques, will accept the idea of setting off underground explosions to release oil and gas.

Friedmann told Platts on the sidelines of the conference that these concerns are valid and must be addressed before the technology can be brought into widespread use.

"The technology I think is promising, but immature," he said. "There's simply a lot more that we're like to understand about these technologies before we'd even try to bring them to the public."

--Jim Magill, jim_magill@platts.com

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