What is tight oil and gas?
Tight oil is an emissions-intensive source of unconventional oil—and production is ramping up. Also known as “shale oil,” tight oil is processed into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels—just like conventional oil—but is extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
What is the difference between shale oil and tight oil?
Shale oil is a form of unconventional oil that is extracted directly from shale rock formations. Shale oil is made possible thanks to advances in horizontal drilling and fracking. Tight oil differs from shale oil because tight oil can be extracted from not just shale formations but also sandstone and carbonates.
What is the difference between shale gas and tight gas?
The most significant difference between shale gas and tight gas is: Shale gas is mostly found trapped in layers of sedimentary shale rocks. Tight gas is found trapped in sandstone or limestone formations with relatively low permeability.
What is US shale?
The “Shale Revolution” refers to the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that enabled the United States to significantly increase its production of oil and natural gas, particularly from tight oil formations, which now account for 36% of total U.S. crude oil production.
What is the difference between shale oil and shale gas?
Shale gas and shale oil are exactly the same as conventional gas and oil. Natural gas is composed mostly of methane, and less is required during the processing. Crude oil requires extensive refining before it is used. Note, that shale oil is not the same as “oil shale,” aka oilsands, which is mined in Canada.
What is shale gas and shale oil?
Shale is porous rock that holds natural gas and their liquid components. These hydrocarbons are accessed by hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking.” This creates fractures in sedimentary rock by using water mixed with small amounts of sand and additives to release the natural gas or oil.
What is tight gas used for?
A tight gas reservoir is a low-porosity, low-permeability formation that must be fracture treated to flow at economic gas rates and to recover economic volumes of gas. Without a fracture treatment, gas from tight gas reservoirs will produce at low flow rates under radial flow conditions.
What is tight oil and how is it produced?
Economic production from tight oil formations requires the same hydraulic fracturing and often uses the same horizontal well technology used in the production of shale gas. While sometimes called “shale oil”, tight oil should not be confused with oil shale (shale rich in kerogen) or shale oil (oil produced from oil shales).
Although shales have low permeability and low effective porosity, shale gas is usually considered separate from tight gas, which is contained most commonly in sandstone, but sometimes in limestone. Tight gas is considered an unconventional source of natural gas. But they are much older than the Conventional gas.
What is another name for shale gas?
For gas generated by oil shale pyrolysis and also referred as shale gas, see Oil shale gas. 48 structural basins with shale gas and oil, in 38 countries, per the US Energy Information Administration, 2011.
What are the byproducts of shale gas exploration?
One of the byproducts of shale gas exploration is the opening up of deep underground shale deposits to “tight oil” or shale oil production. By 2035, shale oil production could “boost the world economy by up to $2.7 trillion, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report says.