Tight Reserves Research Articles

ESKOM and the problems of South African energy

For a long period, the industrial development of South Africa has been stimulated by cheap and abundant electricity supply through a unified energy system created in 1969–1973 by ESKOM (until 1987 ESCOM), founded in 1923 as an Electricity Supply Commission, a state-owned enterprise. Until early 2000, Eskom was considered one of the most advanced and efficient energy utilities of the world. During the last two decades it is in deep crisis and actually turned bankrupt, being drained by corruption, mismanagement and technological decay. Eskom has been confronted with escalating plant breakdowns and critically tight reserve margins, to the extent that reliable electricity supply of the economy has been blocked. The troubled utility failed to meet demand, resulting in South Africa’s numerous crippling blackouts between 2007 and 2023. Eskom has also been unsuccessfully struggling to service its massive debt – over $30 billion, largely due to massive theft and corruption. BBEE policies and «positive discrimination» aggravated problems of the company by spreading «tenderocracy», lowering professional standards and quality of fuel, now supplied in small portions by small Black-owned companies from great distances. Ambitious plans of nuclear energy development (SA has the only nuclear power station on the continent) were scrapped, new big coal-fired power plants Medupi and Kusile were built with great delays and are already breaking down. Instead of efficient utilization of existing great fossil fuel resources, a very dubious «just transition» plan with decarbonization, accompanied by division and privatization of ESKOM, is now accepted, being dragged by Western powers – supported by ecological lobby. Poverty and inequality inherited from apartheid only grow as a result of neoliberal economic policies of post-apartheid period.

Methodological framework for tight reserve provement for a carbonate reservoir

Currently, there is a gap between standard national classification of tight reserves and existence of naturally fractured cavernous carbonate reservoirs with low permeable matrix (less than 2 mD), but rather high and not typical initial fluid rate. However, according to development practice for such reservoirs, high rates tend to rapidly decrease to typical for matrix low values because of the small volume of the reserves of fractures and vuggs. This article discusses the methodological framework developed by the authors for tight reserve provement for a carbonate reservoir based on the estimation of the reserves of fractures and vuggs and the well decline rate.

Influence of Typical Core Minerals on Tight Oil Recovery during CO2 Flooding Using the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Technique

CO2 flooding is widely recognized as an efficient way of developing tight reservoirs. Multiple types of minerals in tight rocks may interact with introduced CO2, resulting in more complex mechanisms of tight reserve recovery from tight reservoirs. It is necessary to reveal the impact of core minerals on tight oil recovery, which is critical in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of CO2 flooding for enhanced tight reserve recovery. In this work, 18 tight core samples, retrieved from the Changqing oilfield, are characterized to obtain their mineral compositions. Three typical core samples are then selected to conduct CO2 flooding and investigate how the minerals contained in these tight cores affect the tight oil recovery during CO2 flooding using the nuclear magnetic resonance technique. On the basis of the characterization results, Changqing tight cores mainly contain three typical minerals, i.e., illite, montmorillonite, and quartz. With regard to illite-dominated cores, CO2 is not efficient in extr...

Design and Management of Curtailable Electricity Service to Reduce Annual Peaks

Curtailable electricity service is a voluntary option in which customers receive credits for permitting the utility a certain number of discretionary interruptions per year. This paper describes a methodology that allows an electric utility to design and manage these service offerings to achieve maximal peak load reduction. This methodology was developed in a project jointly sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and New England Electric Service (NEES). A spreadsheet decision support tool was developed for and used by the NEES system dispatcher, who must decide on a daily basis, when to call for an interruption. The methodology also provides guidelines for designing new service offerings, by determining the service attributes and corresponding pricing that will lead to the most efficient use of customer interruptions. Simulated application of the spreadsheet model to NEES's historical loads indicated that significant cost savings can be achieved during years with high daily peak loads. Although the methodology was developed for NEES, it can be applied at other electric utilities, including those who use curtailable service offerings to reduce peak energy costs or to improve tight reserve margins.

THE PUBLIC DEBT: HINDRANCE OR ADVANTAGE TO CREDIT CONTROL?

WE PROBABLY CAN SAY, without provoking serious controversy, that broadly speaking there are two schools of thought on this question. One view is that a large public debt immobilizes the usefulness of monetary and credit policy. The other view is that the public debt has made monetary and credit policy more effective and more useful than ever. This paper will be confined to three questions. What is the nature of the case for each of these two points of view? What are the conditions necessary if credit policy is to be effective, given a large public debt? How can debt policy fit into a general program of economic stabilization? I A considerable tonnage of literature has emerged during the last six years dealing with how a large public debt impedes the proper exercise of credit policy. These issues are by now generally understood, and no useful purpose would be served in any extensive reexploration of this material. It will only be necessary here, therefore, to sort out the principal reasons given for concluding that the emergence of the debt hinders the operation of credit policy. 1. The inevitably large bank holdings of governments imposed by a large public debt tends to immunize the commercial banking system from the effects of Federal Reserve policy. This point is obvious. Their bulging portfolio of government securities provides the banks with a ready means of relaxing constraints on their inclination to expand credit otherwise imposed by a tightening reserve position. Securities can readily be sold in the market. If the market is congested, securities can be allowed to mature into cash, since most bank portfolios contain securities maturing every week. 2. For most banks the Treasury, not businesses or other private borrowers, is the residual borrower. Private borrowers are the bank’s depositors. Competitive pressures, therefore, require that a bank accommodate those on whom it depends for its own existence. Consequently, the bank’s response to a tight reserve position is apt to