Sophisticated technology is being used today in the exploration and production of natural gas and oil. Technology is offering a huge contribution in providing low cost, environmentally sound methods of extracting these resources. Companies like, Western Pipeline Corporation, use these technologies extensively. The economics of producing natural gas are being improved as deposits formerly considered too uneconomic to develop are now feasible.
Natural gas deposits are being found deeper and deeper in the ground in remote, challenging areas. These technologies make the exploration and production more efficient, safe and environmentally friendly.
The major technological innovations are:
3-D and 4-D Seismic Imaging - 3-D seismic imaging creates a three-dimensional model of the subsurface layers and 4-D expands on this, by adding time as a dimension, allowing exploration teams to observe how subsurface characteristics change over time
CO2 - Sand fracturing involves using a mixture of sand propants and liquid CO2 to fracture formations, creating and enlarging cracks through which oil and natural gas may flow more freely. This type of fracturing does not damage the deposit, generates no below ground wastes and protects groundwater resources.
Coiled Tubing - Coiled tubing technologies replace the traditional rigid, jointed drill pipe with a long, flexible coiled pipe string. This greatly reduces the cost of drilling, as well as providing a smaller drilling footprint, requiring less drilling mud, faster rig set up, and reducing the time normally needed to make drill pipe connections.
Slimhole Drilling - Slimhole drilling is exactly as it sounds; drilling a slimmer hole in the ground to get to natural gas and oil deposits. Because of its low cost profile and reduced environmental impact, slimhole drilling provides a method of economically drilling exploratory wells in new areas, drilling deeper wells in existing fields, and providing an efficient means for extracting more natural gas and oil from undepleted fields.
Offshore Drilling Technology - Natural gas and oil deposits are being found at locations that are deeper and deeper underwater. New technology, including improved offshore drilling rigs, dynamic positioning devices and sophisticated navigation systems are allowing safe, efficient offshore drilling in waters more than 10,000 feet deep.
New technologies and applications are constantly being developed. Two other technologies that are drastically changing the natural gas industry are liquefied natural gas and natural gas fuel cells. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is valuable for the transportation of natural gas because LNG takes up about one six hundredth the volume of gaseous natural gas. Fuel cells powered by natural gas have the ability to generate electricity using electrochemical reactions as opposed to combustion of fossil fuels to generate clean and efficient electricity.
About the Author
Bob Jent is the CEO of {a href=" http://westernpipeline.blogspot.com/2007/06/natural-gas-storage.html "}Western Pipeline Corporation.{a href=" http://westernpipeline.blogspot.com/2007/06/natural-gas-storage.html"} Western Pipeline Corp specializes in identifying, acquiring and developing existing, producing reserves on behalf of its individual clients.
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