Unconventional Play Research Articles

Australia Outback Could Be Next World-Class Unconventional Play

A small Colorado independent believes the 7 million acres it has under license in the heart of the Australian Outback could very well be the world's next gargantuan unconventional oil and gas play. "This is a huge resource," consultant Chris Moyes said of the Falcon Oil & Gas holdings in the vast Beetaloo Basin of the Northern Territory. "It is the biggest unconventional resource we know outside of North America. It certainly is of the same class as Gorgon and potentially bigger." That, indeed, is saying something considering the Chevron Gorgon liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) project at Barrow Island on the Northwest Shelf is widely touted as one of the world's largest-ever production ventures. When combined with existing developments and some 11 proposed greenfield projects, Gorgon will play a key role in Australia's objective of overtaking Qatar as the world's top LNG exporter and possibly help reverse its declining oil production. As Gorgon dominates most of the news coming out of Australia of late, Falcon is quietly going about seeking strategic partners for a prospect that Moyes said will be a "100-year project." "It will take a long time to fully exploit a resource of this size and type," he said. Falcon is very optimistic about the project's potential, particularly because it may hold almost 20 billion bbl of oil and 64 Tcf of recoverable gas and is located within a ready-made infrastructure and on the doorstep of one of the world's biggest markets (Fig. 1). "We are very excited about the activity that is going on in the Beetaloo Basin," said Falcon board member Steve Shultz. "We think it has the potential to be a very big part of the Falcon portfolio." Reservoir evaluation consultancy Ryder Scott conducted an independent analysis of the Falcon Beetaloo holdings and determined the prospect could contain 19.1 billion bbl of oil and 63.9 Tcf of gas. Those estimates were classified as "unrisked prospective resource best estimates," which for undrilled prospects typically is generated by integrating seismic interpretation with regional geologic data and taking into account a number of geological risk factors. Those include the trap risk, source risk, and reservoir risk, which Ryder Scott defines as "the probability that a lithology exists with sufficient porosity, permeability, and continuity to contain moveable hydrocarbons." Moyes said as much as 80% of the Beetaloo resource base is unconventional tight gas and oil. More Seismic Needed The Beetaloo, however, has not been entirely undrilled. Between 1989 and 1998, Pacific Oil and Gas drilled 11 wells, all of which showed the presence of oil and gas. Most of those earlier wells were drilled as part of a mining program. "They were looking for minerals, but of course, they got oil and gas shows and began to think of it as an oil and gas play," said Moyes, president of Moyes and Company, upstream technical and transaction advisers assisting Falcon in securing prospective partners.

Microhole Coiled Tubing Drilling: A Low Cost Reservoir Access Technology

Although the microhole coiled tubing drilling rigs have been used extensively in Canada, their application in the U.S. has been very limited. In an effort to introduce this technology to the U.S. operators, GTI, with the support of DOE∕NETL, has completed a successful field testing of the coiled tubing microhole drilling technology. In this paper we report results of field testing of the system in 25 wells drilled in the Niobrara unconventional gas play of Kansas and Colorado. The objective of the field test was to measure and document the rig performance under actual drilling conditions. In these tests, a coiled tubing drilling rig (designed and built by T Gipson with Advanced Drilling Technologies Inc.) was utilized. The rig operations have continued to improve to the point where it now drills a 3100ft well in a single day. Well cost savings of approximately 30% over conventional rotary well drilling have been documented. A description of the rig and a summary of its performance in the Niobrara unconventional gas play are included. In addition, an estimate of economic advantages of widespread application of microhole drilling technology in the lower 48 states is presented.

Designing for PlayBarbara Hendricks

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 13 No. 1 (2003) ISSN: 1546-2250 Designing for Play Hendricks, Barbara (2001). Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate; 267 pages. $75.95. ISBN 0754613208. On the back cover of this volume, the author ispresented as a "specialist play area designer" with 30 yearsexperience. The book itself is presented not as a “how to” book, but asa radically new approach, applying cutting-edge thinking from childdevelopment and child psychology to find innovative design solutions.By challenging the established notions of play provision, and coveringkey sociological, public policy, environmental and design issues, thisbook intends to provides designers with an exploration of, and guideto, designing from a "child's eye" view of the world. As a designer of children's play environments myself, I turned thecover with high expectations, especially as it promises the reader abook that is "beautifully crafted and copiously illustrated withnumerous examples of recently designed playgrounds." The first eight chapters (of 14 in total) of Designing for Playdiscuss a variety of design-related topics, such as play, designhistory, aesthetics, design criteria of society, children anddesigners, and other design issues. Further chapters addressplaygrounds in the context of early childhood institutions, publicparks and schools, as well as current trends in playground design.Closing chapters address the broad topics of "Magic in the Playground"and "Playing with the Future." This leaves only four chapters, lessthan one-third of the book, to deal with the design of specific typesof playgrounds. Moreover, with such an all-encompassing title, one might have expected Designing for Playto cover more than the design of outdoor play areas. Indoor playenvironments such as toy libraries and children's museums areneglected, as are those in 249 public facilities such as airports, railwaystations and shopping centers. Play design in children's institutionssuch as hospitals and special education facilities is a further topicneeding exposure. The book contains no discussion of play design in thedomestic realm where the design message can really come across toparents. Even in the outdoor realm, the book ignores relevant “old”models of contemporary practice such as city farms and adventureplaygrounds. Leaving aside the mismatch between the book's title and content, what does Designing for Playaddress? The book's basic premise is that the field of designingchildren's outdoor spaces not responded to the dramatic culturalchanges of the past 30 years. However, changes in play space designhave occurred, some of which Hendricks indeed discusses, such asadvances in playground safety. Additionally, the author criticizes theinclusion of commercial play equipment on public playgrounds ascontributing to the commercialization of childhood, yet she apparentlyconsults for one of the best known manufacturers and writes sometimesas if she were a lobbyist. The astute reader will deduce early that Designing for Playis a Scandinavian book (translated from the Danish) and its scope doesnot extend beyond Northern Europe apart from occasional references toplayground developments in the United States and Canada. The manyamorphous generalizations made in the book presumably apply to thiscontext; however, there is no explicit reference to the geographiclimitations of the volume. The most interesting project presented inthe book is the Four Seasons Play Garden, the outdoor space of akindergarten in Ring, Denmark. The layout was designed by the authorwith Tom Lindhardt Wils, a Danish artist, play equipment designer, andfounder of Kompan. The kindergarten appears to be an example of theprogressive "outdoors-in-all-weathers" Scandinavian model. However, theauthor does not explain this even though she worked with the teachingstaff to convince them to install an unconventional play environment. 250 I wish Hendricks had devoted more space to such examples. Three and ahalf pages of general description including a single photograph and asmall sketch of the layout tantalized more than delivered useful designinformation- but then, the book was not intended to be a "how to"guide. This is unfortunate. What designers such as myself crave arespecific, technical details about physical design. What was the widthand length of that circular trike pathway? What was the surfacingmaterial? How was surface runoff treated? How was snow clearancehandled in the winter? Which design features supported winter use? Whatprinciples governed the planting design and choice of plant species?How were planted areas protected from foot traffic? How was the kitchengarden laid out? How did children...