Cuadrilla: Doing it the European Way
The lack of drilling rigs is often pointed to as one of the reasons that European shale gas activity will follow a course different to that from the explosive growth seen in the United States.
But Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. did not buy into that proposition.
Dr. Peter Turner, Director of Exploration at Cuadrilla. showed delegates at Shale Gas Results in Europe 2011 an impressive aerial photograph of the company’s drilling rig at Grange Hill-1 in the UK.
Set in the middle of a lush green field, the operation, comprised of mostly blue containers, appears quite compact and, other than a nearby basin of water, seems to have minimal impact upon the immediate landscape.
With that in context, Dr. Turner spoke about UK Shale Gas Exploration to the audience.
“We wanted to keep things small and then we got overtaken by investors,” he recalled. We thought ‘we can do this but we don’t want to hire a rig, because it’s expensive.’ So we bought our own rig and off we go.”
The photograph was of Cuadrilla’s HH220 rig in the UK’s Bowland basin, which is one of a number of Lower Carboniferous extensional basins.
“We’re here in Northwest England,” he explained, “and we’re going to go to Holland and then to Poland in 2013. We’re in the carboniferous basins.”
Turner showed a diagram of the Bowland Basin and East Irish Oil & Gas Province. His slide revealed “Significant ‘Shale Gas’ Potential in the Bowland Shale and Namurian shales.”
When we started, we asked is it a Marcellus, a Barnett? It’s a European play and has nothing to do with North America, but it does have loads of gas. We’re doing frack stages here, here and here,” he showed.
Another slide, entitled “Stratigraphic Framework for the Bowland Basin” revealed it’s shale gas resource potential: >3,000 feet (1,000 meters); TOC: 2-4%; Tmax: 450 (top) – 610 (base); mudstones and thinly laminated 1st turbidites; and naturally fractured.
“We can’t do it in the North American way,” Turner said of shale gas exploration and drilling in the UK. “We have to engage every single stakeholder.”
Of Cuadrilla’s exploration strategy, he said: “At the well site we do vertical wells through the whole sequence, wireline coring, gas desorption of cuttings and core, and core description and sampling, among others.”
“What we’ve done in the wells, an absolutely full scan of initial logs – they give us fine detail of everything we want to look at.”
He continued: “The images are crucial because they tell everything that’s in the formation. You can make a lot of good decisions about different things. It’s really important to try and relate the subsurface with the surface.”
Turner added amazingly there were huge open pores in the Bowland shale.
“Three years ago I really wanted to retire,” he explained, “But there’s plenty of gas, it’s mature. Would anyone like to buy it and help me look after my grandchildren? That’s the truth.”
He said developing shale gas was a political thing in the UK: “Does the UK want natural gas or to use something else?”
“At the end of the day, it’s how fast you can drill your wells,” said Turner, who offered his advice for engaging communities touched by drilling operations.
“You have to speak to the local landowner, get him on board. In the UK and most of Europe, there are no royalties. That’s the way it is, so you’ve got to make a deal with the leaseholder and maybe give him a better buck for the deal he’s making.”