Saudi Prince: Fracking Is Threat To Kingdom

[Totally_Baffled]

http://news.sky.com/story/1121610/saudi ... to-kingdom

A Saudi prince has warned that his oil-reliant nation is under threat because of fracking technology being developed elsewhere around the world.

Seriously?????

They should see it as a blessing - it will make their oil last longer - well until we fry the planet anyway!

[kenneal - lagger]

Fracking is only profitable with a high oil price so the Saudis should be laughing all the way to the bank. The US government will have to engineer a continuing high oil price to ensure their new found fuel independence endures and to ensure that the fracking companies continue with their bribes, sorry I meant campaign contributions!

[Billhook]

Looks more like helpful propaganda to try to maintain investor confidence in the profit potential of the fracable hydrocarbon resources.
Any investor who tracks the fundamentals has to be getting prepared to jump before the fashion peaks.
Which in turn means that investment growth will be slowing while the rate of new-well drilling needs to accelerate to maintain the output.
What American shill could match the cogency of a Saudi prince's complaints ?

Regards,

Lewis

[Ralph]

Fracking is only profitable with a high oil price so the Saudis should be laughing all the way to the bank.

The first 100,000 frack jobs or so were done when oil was about $14/bbl. And the next quarter million were done as oil then slowly drifted down to $10/bbl.

I'm guessing a little here, but that all happened before 1970.

[biffvernon]

Not all frack jobs are equal. Those old ones were a very different affair to the shale gas hunt now in the news.

[Ralph]

Not all frack jobs are equal. Those old ones were a very different affair to the shale gas hunt now in the news.

True. The old ones used diesel fuel or gasoline, mixed with all sorts of acids to thicken them up, and all sorts of nasty chemicals and solvents. The new ones use plenty of water. Once upon a time you couldn't drink a frac fluid, now you can drink millions of gallons of it, and soon you can drink the entire thing including all the chemicals used.

Certainly things are different now. Maybe that is how prices changed fracking, when oil was $14/bbl it only justified nasty and bad fluid frac jobs, $100/bbl allows all the eco-friendly and drinkable ones?

[biffvernon]

Hang on, Ralph, are we not comparing apples with pears here? The early fracking was to improve flow in relatively shallow reservoir rocks. Today's fracking for tight gas in shale involve pressures of an order of magnitude greater. It's a very different affair.

[Ralph]

Hang on, Ralph, are we not comparing apples with pears here? The early fracking was to improve flow in relatively shallow reservoir rocks. Today's fracking for tight gas in shale involve pressures of an order of magnitude greater. It's a very different affair.

Really? More than half a century ago fluids were used to hydraulically fracture the rock, versus the explosive mixtures used previous to WWII.

Here is a cool lunch slide (#4) with a definition:

Engineer’s Definition: is the process of transmitting pressure by fluid or gas to create cracks or to open existing cracks in underground rock. These cracks are then usually filled with sand to produce a more permeable pathway for oil and gas to travel to the wellbore.

http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws ... tation.pdf

Depth doesn't have anything to do with it. Fluid doesn't even appear to matter all that much. Effect isn't any different from back then, and nowadays. Nowadays the industry uses components you can drink, versus the bad old days, but the procedure isn't any different. Bigger scale maybe, now that the primary application which once took place two or three times in a vertical wellbore can now happen 40 times in a horizontal, but the definition doesn't care much about the orientation of the well the job is being done in either.

[biffvernon]

Yes, I believe the key difference is that today's fracking for tight gas in shale involve pressures of an order of magnitude greater than what was used decades ago. It's the pressure that changes the way the process is handled and the potential safety risks.

[RenewableCandy]

Nowadays the industry uses components you can drink,

I'd like to see you try

[JohnB]

Nowadays the industry uses components you can drink,

I'd like to see you try

Apparently some American cows tried it, and turned up their toes at it!

[Ralph]

Yes, I believe the key difference is that today's fracking for tight gas in shale involve pressures of an order of magnitude greater than what was used decades ago. It's the pressure that changes the way the process is handled and the potential safety risks.

Fracking pressure is related to depth and the fracture strength of the rock. Certainly fracking at 10,000' would involve more hydraulic horsepower than fracking at 5,000', but beyond needing the high pressure steel and pumps for the higher pressures, no, it is still pumping a fluid into the rock to open up natural pathways to get the proppant in. And in some cases, you don't even need proppant, changing the stress field is enough.

Currently in the Utica I don't know if they even need 3000psi for breakdown in a few of the more western areas, and yet you wander off to the east and in the same Devonian aged rock upsection from the Utica you might need 9000psi....both using the same techniques and equipment...one is not fracking because the pressure is less.

So order of magnitude? Nah. Even back in the 50's they were fracking in the 2000-3000psi range, no problem. Couldn't tell you what the deepest frack jobs were back then, terrible records until about the 80's when some of the modern information services like IHS began trying to keep track of it.

[Ralph]

Nowadays the industry uses components you can drink,

I'd like to see you try

Do it nearly everyday. Most everybody does.

[woodburner]

Some people will talk any amount of rubbish when they are trying to sell something.

[emordnilap]

now you can drink millions of gallons of it, and soon you can drink the entire thing including all the chemicals used.

Total bollox. Why even engage with this RGR troll?