What is "shale oil" ?

[blacksmith37]

Decades ago "shale oil" was kerogen and production required mining/crushing ,or fire flood (maybe steam flood /huff +puff) as in Exxons shutdown project near Rifle CO. In the media today there are some stories that make shale oil production sound like shale gas production (horozontal wells +frac). Has the media got it wrong ,again, or has something changed? Make it simple, I are an engineer ,not a geologist.

 

[ivymike]

no, shale oil can also be oil trapped in shale, which can be accessed via horizontal drililng and hydraulic fracture. just had a schlumberger guy in yesterday talking about the frac end of it.

 

[zdas04]

The hotest plays in the country are the Baaken Shale and the Eagle Ford Shale. Both are big oil producers.

David

 

[DrillerNic]

blacksmith you're correct. Shale oil is indeed immature kerogen containing rock (usually shale) that can be processed, either on the surface or downhole, to make oil.

But there are some oil shale formations where parts of the formation did make it into the oil kitchen and did form oil, and the oil hasn't migrated out of the source rock yet, and this oil can be extracted the same way that gas is extracted from shale (which has a very low permeability)- horizontal wells and fracing.

We might need a new word to describe this oil- how about tight oil (like we have tight gas and shale gas)?