Public concerns over potential environmental contamination associated with oil and gas well drilling and fracturing in the Wattenberg field in northeast Colorado are increasing. One of the issues of concern is the migration of oil, gas, or produced water to a groundwater aquifer resulting in contamination of drinking water. Since methane is the major component of natural gas and it can be disso...

BACKGROUND Hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale rock is a new, rapidly expanding industry in the United States (US). However, there is concern that these operations could be having large negative impacts such as groundwater contamination, increased air pollution and seismic events. The United Kingdom (UK) is looking at the potential for emulating the success of 'shale gas' in ...

Multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells is the main stimulation method in recovering gas from tight shale gas reservoirs, and stage spacing determination is one of the key issues in fracturing design. The initiation and propagation of hydraulic fractures will cause stress redistribution and may activate natural fractures in the reservoir. Due to the limitation of the analytical met...

Utilization of hydraulic-fracturing technology is dramatically increasing in exploitation of natural gas extraction. However the prediction of the configuration of propagated hydraulic fracture is extremely challenging. This paper presents a numerical method of obtaining the configuration of the propagated hydraulic fracture into discrete natural fracture network system. The method is developed...

Dilution is the mixing of radioactive waste with non-radioactive material, whereas downblending is the mixing of high-level radioactive waste with low-level radioactive waste. These processes have been applied predominantly at nuclear sites as part of the decontamination procedures for the disposal of blended wastes in licensed facilities. Proper health and safety assessments should be carried ...

The development of the shale industry is gaining momentum and hence the analysis of chemical hazards to the environment and health of the local population is extreiely timely and important. Chemical hazards are created during the exploitation of all minerals, but in the case of shale gas production, there is much more uncertainty as regards to the effects of new technologies application. Americ...

In low-permeability gas reservoirs, horizontal wells have been used to increase the reservoir contact area, and hydraulic fracturing has been further extending the contact between wellbores and reservoirs. This paper presents an approach to evaluate horizontal well performance for fractured or unfractured gas wells, and a sensitivity study of gas well performance in low permeability formation. ...

    The combination of horizontal drilling along with hydraulic fracturing has significantly improved the production of hydrocarbon reservoirs and made it possible to extract the relatively impermeable and uneconomical reservoirs. The production rate of oil and gas wells increases proportional to hydraulic fracture aperture or crack opening displacement (COD). This is an important parameter i...

The most significant geo-energy sources in the world today continue to be oil, gas, and geothermal reservoirs. To increase oil gas reserves production, new theories are constantly being developed laboratory technologies applied oilfield. This Special Issue compiles recent research focusing on cutting-edge ideas technology reservoirs, covering fields of well drilling, cementing, hydraulic fractu...

This paper deals with the hydrodynamic and thermal analysis of a new type of porous heat exchanger (PHE). This system operates based on energy conversion between gas enthalpy and thermal radiation. The proposed PHE has one high temperature (HT) and two heat recovery (HR1 and HR2) sections. In HT section, the enthalpy of flowing high temperature gas flow that is converted to thermal radiation em...