Abstract
With the rapid depletion of conventional natural gas resources in China and the increasing demand for natural gas as well as the improvement in the exploitation technologies of natural gas, the development of unconventional natural gas resources is rather urgent and feasible day by day and possible at the same time. However, the development of unconventional natural gas fields in China started rather late and slowly, lacking experience. In order to alleviate the conflict between the demand and supply, the development of unconventional natural gas is developing rather rapidly now. In this paper, the unconventional natural gas fields in Sichuan Basin were set as the research objects, with the comparison between two development models --- independent development and joint development, and a comprehensive benefit evaluation system was built with such indexes as technologies, costs, management and risks. Through the study, it showed that the benefit from independent development model outweighed that from the joint development, and the reason for it lay in that the cost indexes in independent development model were far lower than that in joint development model, which covered a rather big portion in the evaluation system. But, if the operators in joint development projects could strengthen the cost control, and cut it down equivalent to the cost level in independent development model, the benefits from joint development model would be better than those in independent development model. Such conclusion would provide references for decision making in the development and exploitation of unconventional natural gas fields.
Highlights
Unconventional natural gas fields refer to the resources which can’t be exploited and developed via conventional technological methods and approaches, mainly including tight sandstone gas, shale gas and coal-bed methane, characterized with large reserves, wide distribution, great difficulty in development, long-term development, high development cost, and complex development technologies
In the process of exploitation of unconventional natural gas fields, hydro-fracturing technology was used for the increase in its yield, a large amount of water, sand and chemical additives were mixed to be filled into the well with high pressure to fracture rocks, further to release the natural gas reserved in rocks [4]
In order to speed up the development of unconventional natural gas in China, financial preferential policies, mineral rights management policies and special funds for scientific research had been issued for the exploitation and development of unconventional natural gas fields, and the development strategy of “introducing, going out, fully using two types of capitals, resources and market at home and abroad” was encouraged to carry out
Summary
Unconventional natural gas fields refer to the resources which can’t be exploited and developed via conventional technological methods and approaches, mainly including tight sandstone gas, shale gas and coal-bed methane, characterized with large reserves, wide distribution, great difficulty in development, long-term development, high development cost, and complex development technologies. In the process of exploitation of unconventional natural gas fields, hydro-fracturing technology was used for the increase in its yield, a large amount of water, sand and chemical additives were mixed to be filled into the well with high pressure to fracture rocks, further to release the natural gas reserved in rocks [4]. Since the water reservoir would be penetrated in the process of drilling, the filled water with chemical additives via high pressure would be of a great pollution threat In spite of such problems in the exploitation and development of unconventional natural gas fields, because of the scarce natural resources and the increase in its social demand, together with the technological advancement, the economic value of unconventional natural gas fields would be highlighted
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