Improving Natural Gas Production in Shale
Improving Natural Gas Production in Shale
Los Alamos National Laboratory highlights a new hydrocarbon study in their online Science News report that reports new methods for improving natural gas production in shale. This study titled Reduced methane recovery at high pressure due to methane trapping in shale nanopores, has been published in Nature’s new Communications Earth & Environment journal.
Most of the natural gas produced in the United States is trapped deep underground within shale reservoirs. However, extracting these resources efficiently remains a significant challenge because shale formations typically have extremely low porosity and permeability, limiting the flow of gas through the rock. As a result, current recovery rates for unconventional hydrocarbon resources are often only about 20 percent, leaving a substantial amount of natural gas inaccessible using existing methods.
This study has provided new insights into the fundamental mechanisms that control how hydrocarbons are retained within the nanoporous structure of shale. By improving our understanding of these processes, researchers hope to identify strategies that could significantly increase natural gas recovery from unconventional reservoirs.
To investigate methane behavior within shale, the research team combined advanced molecular dynamics simulations with innovative in situ high-pressure small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments. This integrated approach allowed the scientists to examine how methane interacts with shale materials at the nanoscale under realistic reservoir conditions.
The study found that while increasing pressure can be effective for recovering methane from larger pores within the shale matrix, the behavior of gas in smaller nanopores is considerably more complex. In these tiny pores, which are common throughout shale formations, dense methane can become trapped due to deformation of kerogen, the organic material that generates and stores hydrocarbons within the rock.
The researchers also discovered that the pressure conditions used during gas recovery have a significant impact on methane extraction from these nanoporous regions. Their findings suggest that optimizing pressure ranges could improve methane recovery by reducing gas trapping within the shale matrix.
These results provide valuable new knowledge about the nanoscale processes that influence hydrocarbon recovery and may help guide the development of more efficient extraction technologies. By better understanding how methane behaves within shale reservoirs, scientists and engineers can work toward improving recovery rates and maximizing the value of existing energy resources.
This research was led by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Partners include the New Mexico Consortium, University of Maryland, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research
Read the entire LANL Science News article at: How to improve natural gas production in shale.
Photo from Stock Photo.
Article by Carrie Talus.