New ideas solving old problems in domestic oil and gas recovery

Posted on February 17, 2012 by

This quote might hurt your brain for the first couple of reads, but once the ifs, ands, or buts fall into place it makes extraordinary sense:

“We usually find gas in new places with old ideas. Sometimes, also, we find gas in an old place with a new idea, but we seldom find much gas in an old place with an old idea. Several times in the past we have thought that we were running out of gas, whereas actually we were only running out of ideas.”

- Adapted from Parke A. Dickey by American Potential Gas Committee.

World panic has been driven by the belief that we are running out of oil and gas. That is because the number of new proven oil fields has dropped. The oil giants give the illusion that they move into tap new fields, exhaust them, and move on. If that were true we would indeed be in serious trouble.

But the fact is that the big boys are performing only primary and secondary oil recovery. Their infrastructures are costly, so their bottom line is much higher than smaller companies following behind them to enact tertiary recovery.

Don’t mistake these efforts as being the same as birds gleaning a harvested field where the best has already been taken. The oil fields abandoned as “exhausted” may actually have as much as 70 to 80% of the original reservoir still untapped.

Smaller companies such as Team Resources Inc have moved into the areas, snapped up these abandoned lease holdings, and are implementing new strategies and technologies to harvest the vast reserves still underground. And they have found that the US is far from running out of gas or oil.

A spokes man for Team Resources puts the fear of running out of gas firmly to bed:

“As a matter of fact we have already found an abundant resource which could “come to market” very quickly without the need to build major infrastructures and could slash our demand of foreign oil significantly in just a few years. This resource is Natural Gas. It is estimated that the US has enough Natural gas to last a century or more!”

Team Resources does not compete with the large oil and gas corporations, the company marches to its own drum with new ideas and new technologies to increase domestic production.

“Team Resources does not compete with the Oil Giants. We have been involved with Texaco back in the 1990’s and Team Resources drilled a well where Dominion and NewField were involved. These companies “explore” and look for large reserves which costs quite a bit more than Team Resources would care to “risk”. Their business objectives are much larger scale usually overseas. Team Resources has our own niche; we keep our overhead low and are focused in an area where the drilling and completing of wells are reasonable with oil reserves substantial enough to yield solid returns.”

The result is a new idea in an old setting.  It seems like Team Resources does not lack for new ideas to solve old problems.

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Oil and Gas: Cut down or produce more

Posted on September 16, 2011 by

Logic dictates that if you use more of a product than you can produce, then you will have to obtain more of that product from another source. That is why the US buys oil and gas from foreign suppliers.

Since 1970 production from proven oil reservoirs and new discoveries has dropped by 3.8% annually, while demand has been steadily increasing. The creation of biofuels has not evolved fast enough, and there is no indication that they will be saving the US from its hunger for energy in the near future.

Since the US government is encouraging the satisfying of their energy needs domestically, there are only two choices: use less or produce more. While some conservation of energy incentives have resulted in small efforts to curb use of non-renewable energy, the total is too small to make any major impact against the continuously growing need for it.

The only solution then is to increase domestic production. Again there are two choices: increase exploration for new reservoirs, or make use of new technology to increase EOR.  Since there have been more newly proven oil reservoirs in existing oil fields than potential new sources, EOR looks like the best bet.

There are many new innovations in EOR. The controversy over “fracking” shows that not all new technology is superior environmentally. But there are some methods that have been developed that create a very small environmental footprint while effectively tapping the remaining reserves under the abandoned oil fields.

One of these is Radical Jet Drilling. Team Resources LLC CEO Kevin Boyles explains the process:

“Team Resources LLC,” says Kevin Boyles, “is currently working with Well Enhancement Services “WES” and using their Radial Jet Horizontal technology.  Team Resources LLC is working in oil reservoirs with certain characteristics which respond well to Radial Jet Horizontal applications. According to WES, Enhanced Oil Recovery – Radial Jet Technology has been proven to enhance production 3-10 fold and is less costly than most conventional technologies. Radial Jet Enhancement is a method of “Jet Drilling” horizontal laterals using a high-pressure water jet system. Oil reserves that otherwise would have remained beyond the reach of conventional technologies can now be recovered efficiently and economically. In some cases, production recoveries are to a point equal to or exceeding that of the wells initial production.”

Kevin Boyles says that Team Resources LLC is working to increase domestic production because he does not feel that renewable fuel sources are going to be riding to the rescue for a while. For the moment, EOR is where it’s at. That is what Kevin Boyles believes, and he is going to see that Team Resources LLC prove him right.

 

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EOR Operations necessary for Abandoned Wells

Posted on September 16, 2011 by

Team Resources LLC, founded by Kevin Boyles, is acquiring old oil field lease holdings in Kansas for the purpose of redeveloping existing mature wells. They are performing tertiary EOR on wells that were deserted by the large oil companies when it became too costly for them to keep them in production. While Kevin Boyles is concerned with financial returns for Team Resources LLC, he and his company are doing a very important service for the safety of the US environment.

In the US alone there are at least 2.5 million abandoned oil and gas wells. Many of these wells were orphaned before government regulations came into effect. The capping of these wells sometimes consisted of what is referred to as a “brush plug”, which is exactly what it sounds like: brush and foliage was stuffed down the bore and then the well was abandoned.

Even in present times there is no really effective way to cap unused wells.  When the leak started at Deepwater Horizon, all the available methods were tried to plug it without success.  Top engineers in the field were flying by the seat of their pants to stop the leak, not unlike the “experts” in Japan trying to bring the disaster at Fukushima under control.

There is no precise established number of orphaned wells on or off shore. Teams trying to contain the Deepwater leak found four abandoned underwater wells in close proximity, all of them leaking.

Do not confuse “abandoned” for “exhausted” or “depleted”. These wells are far from depleted. Primary and secondary recovery, done by large oil and gas companies, may only tap 20% of the available reservoirs.  That leaves as much as 80% of the oil and gas untapped.

“Largely ignored by both industry and governments, this problem has been growing for 150 years, ever since the first oil wells were drilled. Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time.” writes Steven Kotler for Eco-hearth.

This presents a huge contradiction in goals for the US: on one hand they want to increase domestic production, and on the other hand many wells with years of production left in them sit neglected like ticking time bombs.

Fortunately there are companies and people, like Team Resources LLC and Kevin Boyles, who are working in the old oil fields, trying to revitalize them. These efforts may be financially motivated, but they are also decreasing the number of unattended and orphaned oil wells presenting potential environmental damage.

“Team Resources INC, (says Kevin Boyles), does not use “fracking” technology, reducing damage to the structure of rock formations underground.”

Kevin Boyles of Team Resources LLC, whose primary goal is oil recovery, is also quite literally taking the pressure off many potential explosive situations in the Kansas oil fields.

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Put out the Flame

Posted on September 14, 2011 by

There are three main ways that oil companies have traditionally treated the presence of natural gas in oil wells. The two often come together in rock formations.

The first, most productive one is to pump the gas back into the ground to increase pressure, forcing the oil upwards. During the primary stage of oil recovery such techniques are usually not necessary, but by the secondary stage the oil production has slowed down and methods must be implemented to push more oil out of the reserve.

The natural gas left after the well is considered depleted is abandoned with the well.

Another technique is just to vent the gas into the air. Allowing untreated natural gas, which is primarily composed of methane, is a high contributor to green house gases.

The last technique is just as bad: burning off the gas (or flaring it).  Sometimes it is necessary to reduce the pressure on equipment, so venting or flaring of gas is necessary. But the continuous use of a gas flare also contributes to ecological contamination. This is something that the Kyoto Protocol is trying to prevent by giving out carbon bonuses to companies installing equipment that prevents the methane from being released into the atmosphere.

At one time kerosene was the prize, and all that heavy black liquid was not useful at all. Now oil is heavy black liquid GOLD, and the often accompanying natural gas is now being looked at to fulfill US domestic energy needs.

Natural gas is already at work heating homes, and being converted to electricity. But is it really being exploited to its full capacity?

Kevin Boyles of Team Resources sees Natural Gas as an important stop gap fuel, something that can help bolster domestic energy production while other renewable energy solutions are sought.

“As a matter of fact we have already found an abundant resource which could “come to market” very quickly without the need to build major infrastructures and could slash our demand of foreign oil significantly in just a few years. This resource is Natural Gas. It is estimated that the US has enough Natural gas to last a century or more!”

Mr. Boyles sees an immediate future in converting car engines to natural gas.  He does not envision hybrid cars making a strong dent in the gasoline powered automobile industry for awhile yet.

Team Resources has operations in the formerly abandoned oil fields of Kansas, using new technology in tertiary EOR. Kevin Boyles makes it clear that Team Resources, partnering with companies developing new technology such as WES, is a front leader in new and more environmentally friendly domestic energy production.

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