Technological Advances Needed to Drive Shale Globally

The global spread of shale drilling will depend on the availability of manpower, oilfield equipment and advanced drilling technology, Schlumberger Ltd. executive Valerie Jochen.

Speaking at natural gas conference held by Bentek Energy, Jochen, technical director for Schlumberger's unconventional resources production business, said "the main obstacles are going to be ... the amount of resources that we have that are willing to leave North America to go globally, I think that's from people and from hardware."

Shale drilling may not be feasible in some countries because of environmental concerns, "but there are many places in the world that their driver is they want to be energy independent," Jochen said.

Those countries will eventually compete to lure skilled oilfield workers and drilling equipment from places like the U.S. and Canada, she said.

Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield service company, last year helped Poland's Lane Energy, a subsidiary of 3Legs Resources Group, drill the first exploratory shale well in the country's vast Baltic Basin.

Jochen said the "brute force" drilling approach--penetrating shale basins with thousands of wells--that was used to unlock North America's unconventional resources won't work there or in many other places internationally.

Instead, technological advances that allow producers to recover more oil and and gas from fewer wells will be needed, she said.

Consider, she said, the Barnett Shale near Dallas where there are more than 13,000 producing gas wells. "Those 13,000 gas wells are within 13,000 kilometers," Jochen said. The Baltic Shale, meanwhile, stretches over 100,000 kilometers, she said.

"The magnitude is going to increase as we grow internationally with this technology," she said. "It's going to take technology."

Source: Marketwatch