We studied the elastic moduli, ductile creep behavior, and brittle strength of shale-gas reservoir rocks from Barnett, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, and Fort St. John shale in a series of triaxial laboratory experiments. We found a strong correlation between the shale compositions, in particular, the volume of clay plus kerogen and intact rock strength, frictional strength, and viscoplastic creep. V...

This paper presents main results of a shale stability study, related to the understanding of shale/ fluid interaction mechanisms, and discusses shale strength correlation. The major shale/ fluid interaction mechanisms: Capillary, osmosis, hydraulic, swelling and pressure diffusion, and recent experimental results are discussed. Factors affecting the shale strength are discussed, and a sonic com...

China has considerable coal resources. Benefiting from the widespread distribution of coal measures and the inter-sedimentary development of coal bed, dark shale, and fine-grained tight sandstone in coal measures, China has a geological environment and material basis favorable for the co-occurrence of a variety of coal gases. With such a huge reservoir of coal gases, including gases such as coa...

faculty research workshop H.E. Dr. Seyed Mohammad Hossein Adeli, the Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture titled, “Gas and Alternative Fuels: Present and Future Shares and Challenges.” The talk focused on the dynamics of the gas market and provided an overview of the latest revolutions in the energy sector such as the emergence...

Oil shale is a sedimentary rock that contains kerogen, a fossil organic material. Kerogen can be heated to produce oil and gas (retorted). This has traditionally been a CO2-intensive process. In this paper, the Shell in situ conversion process (ICP), which is a novel method of retorting oil shale in place, is analyzed. The ICP utilizes electricity to heat the underground shale over a period of ...

We optimized potential parameters in a molecular dynamics model to reproduce the experimental contact angle of a macroscopic mercury droplet on graphite. With the tuned potential, we studied the effects of pore size, geometry, and temperature on the wetting of mercury droplets confined in organic-rich shale nanopores. The contact angle of mercury in a circular pore increases exponentially as po...

We developed two new EOS additions to the TOUGH+ family of codes, the RealGasH2O and RealGas. The RealGasH2O EOS option describes the non-isothermal two-phase flow of water and a real gas mixture in a gas reservoir (including a tight/shale gas one). The gas mixture is treated as either a single-pseudocomponent having a fixed composition, or as a multicomponent system composed of up to 9 individ...

Fine-grained sedimentary rocks (shale and mudstone) play important roles in global CO2 abatement efforts through their uses in carbon capture and storage (CCS), radioactive waste storage, and shale gas extraction. These different technologies, however, rely on seemingly conflicting premises regarding the sealing properties of shale and mudstone, suggesting that those rocks that lend themselves ...

What do we know about ageing at work? Evidence-based fitness for duty and health in fire fighters. The current enthusiasm for fracking takes me back to the oil crisis of the late 1970s. I had been asked to see a post-thoracotomy patient and, when he recovered, found that his lesion had been pneumoconiotic. When I enquired which mine he worked in, he told me that it had been a shale mine and sin...

Hydraulic fracturing is used to increase the permeability of shale gas formations and involves pumping large volumes of fluids into these formations. A portion of the frac fluid remains in the formation after the fracturing process is complete, which could potentially contribute to deleterious microbially induced processes in natural gas wells. Here, we report on the geochemical and microbiolog...