ABSTRACT

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary

rock composed of mud that is a mix of
flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments
(silt-sized particles) of other minerals,
especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of
clay to other minerals is variable.

PE-306
SUBSURFACE PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

SHALE
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Subsurface Production Engineering PE-306
Assignment

Subsurface Production Engineering

Pe-306
Group Assignment: Shale

Prepared By:

Maisam Abbas (PE-038)

Musab Usman (PE-037)
Muhammed Ehtesham (PE-039)
Salal Shaukat (PE-040)

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Shale
Shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing
kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which
liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil or gaseous hydrocarbons called
shale gas can be produced. Shale oil is a substitute for conventional
crude oil; however, extracting shale oil from oil shale is more costly than
the production of conventional crude oil both financially and in terms of
its environmental impact.

Geological Features of Shale:

Composition:
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that
is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments (silt-sized
particles) of other minerals, especially
quartz and calcite.
Texture:
Shale is characterized by breaks along
thin laminae or parallel layering or
bedding less than one centimeter in
thickness, called fissility. Shale
typically exhibits varying degrees of
fissility breaking into thin layers, often
splintery and usually parallel to the otherwise indistinguishable bedding
plane because of parallel orientation of clay mineral flakes.

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Color:
Shales are typically composed of variable amounts of clay minerals and
quartz grains and the typical color is gray. Addition of variable amounts
of minor constituents alters the color of the rock. Black shale results
from the presence of greater than one percent carbonaceous material.
Red, brown and green colors are indicative of ferric oxide (hematite
reds), iron hydroxide (goethite browns and limonite yellow), or
micaceous minerals (chlorite, biotite and illite greens).
Grain Size:
It is a laminated, fissile, fine-grained sedimentary rock made up of silt
(0.0625 - 0.004 mm) and clay size particles (<0.004 mm). Shale is
defined in terms of particle size, not composition.

Prospects of Shale oil/gas around the World:

33 countries possess known deposits of possible economic value. Well-
explored deposits, potentially classifiable as reserves, include the Green
River deposits in the western United States, the Tertiary deposits in
Queensland, Australia, deposits in Sweden and Estonia, the El-Lajjun
deposit in Jordan, and deposits in France, Germany, Brazil, China,
southern Mongolia and Russia.
A 2008 estimate set the total world resources of oil shale at 689 gigatons
equivalent to yield of 4.8 trillion barrels (760 billion cubic metres) of
shale oil, with the largest reserves in the United States, which is thought
to have 3.7 trillion barrels (590 billion cubic metres), though only a part
of it is recoverable.

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Statistics:

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United States Boom:

The United States is the first country to pioneer a profitable production
of shale gas. In the US, shale gas production has increased
exponentially: from 11 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2000 to 138 bcm in
2010. In other words, shale gas has increased by 12.3 times in the last 10
years, which is 23% of the shale gas resource is 24.4-49.4 trillion cubic
meters (tcm) only in the US. The shale gas resources are estimated to be
enormous. Production rate of about 0.6 tcm per year, the current
recoverable shale gas resource estimate could provide enough natural
gas to supply the US for the next 41 to 82 years (some estimates claim
more than a 100 years).
An image of Shale Basins in the U.S is as follows:

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Shale Extraction:

Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil

production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by
pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil
is used as fuel oil or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications
by adding hydrogen and removing sulfur and nitrogen impurities.
Shale oil extraction is sometimes performed above ground (ex situ
processing) by mining the oil shale and then treating it in processing
facilities.
Fracking:
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, typically frees oil by cracking rock
with high-pressure bursts of water, sand, and chemicals. Tight rock in
shale-oil plays like the Bakken requires multistage fracking to maximize
oil recovery. In multistage fracking, engineers perforate short segments
of the production casing independently. This allows them to concentrate
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the hydraulic assault, creating longer cracks that allow more oil to flow
to the well.

Procedure of Shale Fracking:

Hydraulic fracturing produces fractures in the rock formation that
stimulate the flow of natural gas or oil, increasing the volumes that can
be recovered. Wells may be drilled vertically hundreds to thousands of
feet below the land surface and may include horizontal or directional
sections extending thousands of feet.
Fractures are created by pumping large quantities of fluids at high
pressure down a wellbore and into the target rock formation. Hydraulic
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fracturing fluid commonly consists of water, proppant and chemical

additives that open and enlarge fractures within the rock formation.
These fractures can extend several hundred feet away from the wellbore.
The proppants - sand, ceramic pellets or other small incompressible
particles - hold open the newly created fractures.
Once the injection process is completed, the internal pressure of the rock
formation causes fluid to return to the surface through the wellbore. This
fluid is known as both "flowback" and "produced water" and may
contain the injected chemicals plus naturally occurring materials such as
brines, metals, radionuclides, and hydrocarbons. The flowback and
produced water is typically stored on site in tanks or pits before
treatment, disposal or recycling. In many cases, it is injected
underground for disposal. In areas where that is not an option, it may be
treated and reused or processed by a wastewater treatment facility and
then discharged to surface water.

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Shale Oil/Gas in Pakistan:

The US EIA report estimates Pakistan's total shale oil reserves at 227
billion barrels of which 9.1 billion barrels are technically recoverable
with today's technology. In addition, the latest report says Pakistan has
586 trillion cubic feet of shale gas of which 105 trillion cubic feet (up
from 51 trillion cubic feet reported in 2011) is technically recoverable
with current technology.

Shale Basins in Pakistan:

The following image illustrates the Basins of shale in Pakistan;

Pakistan carries a shale-rich Lower Indus Basin which has the potential
Samber-lower guru formations which are rich in shale gas. As can be
seen in the shale resource map, most of Pakistan's shale oil and gas
resources are located in the lower Indus basin region, particularly in
Ranikot and Sembar shale formations.

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EIA had reported in April 2011

that 206 tcf of shale gas was
present in the lower Indus Basin,
of which 51 tcf were technically
recoverable.

Conclusion Phrase:

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Pakistan's current annual consumption of oil is only 150 million barrels.

Even if it more than triples in the next few years, the 9.1 billion barrels
currently technically recoverable would be enough for over 18 years.
Similarly, even if Pakistan current gas demand of 1.6 trillion cubic feet
triples in the next few years, it can be met with 105 trillion cubic feet of
technically recoverable shale gas for more than 20 years. And with
newer technologies on the horizon, the level of technically recoverable
shale oil and gas resources could increase substantially in the future.

References:
http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/06/us-eia-estimates-pak-shale-oil-
reserves.html
https://tribune.com.pk/story/994883/hydrocarbon-presence-pakistan-has-
10159-tcf-of-shale-gas-deposits-usaid/
http://www.shalegas.international/2015/11/22/pakistan-discovers-more-
than-10000-tcf-shale-gas-reserves/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale
http://geology.com/rocks/shale.shtml
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/15/us-shale-producers-export-record-oil-
as-opec-cuts-back.html
http://www.cfr.org/united-states/shale-gas-tight-oil-boom-us-states-
economic-gains-vulnerabilities/p31568

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