Economic Feasibility Analysis of Shale Gas Extraction from UK’s Carboniferous Bowland-Hodder Shale Unit

Abstract

For many years, shale gas exploitation has been generating contradictory views in the UK and remains subject of rising debates throughout these years. Favorably backed by the government, looking upon it as potential mechanism for gas import independency and competitiveness in global gas industry while strongly opposed by stakeholders (mainly public), idea of shale gas exploitation remains disputed with no substantial progress in past years. And this irresolution is worsened by obscurity of estimates for potential reserves and conflicting assessments on potential impact of shale gas. Yet, in case shale industry is signaled to search and extract resources, there remains another scrutiny stage that shale industry will be subjected to i.e., its extraction must be economically feasible as extracting unconventional resources is financially expensive and riskier than conventional. Hence, this study aims at analyzing the economics of UK's most prolific Bowland shale play development by a financial model that discovers gas prices range required to earn capital cost on investment in Bowland shale play and is tested on three development plans where it determines that based on given set of hypothesis and past decade's average gas price of $6.52/Mcf, none of the development plans hold enough probability of adding value, however, hybrid plan formulated by combination of consistent drilling and refracturing proves as economically sustainable with a RGP mean $7.21/Mcf, significantly lower than $9.76/Mcf mean for 'drilling only' plan. It is found that required gas price is most sensitive to initial production rate and drilling costs where ±10% variation offsets RGP by ≈±8% and ±7%.

Low-Salinity-Assisted Cationic Polyacrylamide Water Shutoff in Low-Permeability Sandstone Gas Reservoirs

“…45,65,66 (2) A 0.2 g sample of particles was aged in 2 cm 3 of KCl solution (2 and 0.2 wt %) in a capped vial that was placed in an oven for 48 h at 60 °C, followed by measurement of the zeta potential of these samples. (3) Similar to Step 2, another 0.2 g of particles was aged in 2 cm 3 of polymer solution prepared using the earlier mentioned brines (2 and 0.2 wt %) and then their zeta potential was measured. (4) Similar to Step 2, another 0.2 g of particles was aged in 2 cm 3 of polymer solution that was prepared using the earlier mentioned brines (2 and 0.2 wt %).…”

Shale gas: a step toward sustainable energy future

“…It is highly recommended that the costs of producing the shale should be estimated and planned, keeping in mind the high uncertainties in the prices of shale gas overseas. The extraction and development of shale gas are only possible when the market prices can counterbalance the production expenses which is not an easy task since the forecasts must be exact and reliable (Ahmed and Rezaei-Gomari 2019).…”

Integrated Technical and Economical Methodology for Assessment of Undeveloped Shale Gas Prospects: Applying in the Lurestan Shale Gas, Iran

“…One of the main substitutes for conventional reservoirs are unconventional resources, especially shale gas resources [8]. In recent years, with the development of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, shale gas reservoirs have an essential share in the energy portfolio [9,10].…”

“…Successful exploration and development of shale gas reservoirs have started in North America. Other countries lag far behind the U.S. in developing shale gas with early exploration stages or production on small scales and regard it as a future energy source [10]. Shale gas regions with different exploration degrees need different assessment approaches for greater exploration and appraisal activity.…”