The ability of a company to analyze unconventional gas reservoirs took a leap forward today, as leading instrumentation company FEI (NASDAQ:FEIC), who provide imaging and analyses systems to research and industry alike, announced they have created a somewhat novel solution.
The system, known as the Helios NanoLab DualBeam, images kerogen, porosity and microstructures in three dimensions, with nanometer-scale resolution. The system allows characterization of pore networks, providing information essential to optimizing extraction procedures and maximizing production.
Dr. Paul Scagnetti, Vice President and General Manager of FEI’s Natural Resource Division, explained how this helps in today’s release: “Huge reserves of natural gas are known to exist in unconventional gas reservoirs, but it is difficult to produce this gas because it is trapped in poorly connected networks of pores with dimensions as small as a few nanometers. The ability to understand the structure of these networks allows geologists to make more accurate predictions of producible gas and optimize its extraction”.
One of the first adopters of this new solution is the University of Oklahoma, in collaboration with Devon Energy, where this initial data is already casting a new light on a number of unconventional reservoirs; the results forming the basis of a number of academic papers (Sondergeld et al. 2010; Sondergeld and Rai 2010; Curtis et al. 2010).
“This imaging and analysis capability is the gateway to understanding, and more efficiently extracting, gas from these enormous global hydrocarbon assets” said Dr. Carl Sondergeld, Professor and Chair at the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, Oklahoma University.
Sondergeld notes that already the Helios method and the data it provides is shining a new light on previously held convictions, noting “Early observations demonstrate that organic matter is distributed differently in different shales, and that this organic material is more porous than previously imagined. The pores are so small that they require new physical controls on the behaviors of gases. The existence of this previously unimagined pore space helps to explain why there is so much producible gas in shales. The images also explain why production declines so rapidly in some of the unconventional shale reservoirs. As a result, this new information is forcing many to reconsider previously held beliefs about unconventional shale reservoirs”.
FEI Company - www.fei.com
FEI Company is a supplier of instruments for nanoscale imaging, analysis and prototyping to enable research, development and manufacturing in a range of industrial, academic and research institutional applications. The Company’s products and systems include focused ion beam systems (FIBs), scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), transmission electron microscopes (TEMs) and DualBeam systems, which combine a FIB and SEM on a single platform. The Company’s DualBeam systems include models that have wafer handling capability that are purchased by semiconductor and data storage manufacturers (wafer-level DualBeam systems) and models that have small stages and are sold to customers in several markets (small-stage DualBeam systems). The Company’s sales and service operations are conducted in the United States and approximately 50 other countries worldwide.