Shale Gas

[Iron Brew]

Interesting shale gas story...

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/busin...940/story.html

[rugatika]

doesn't sound too good for the future of Alberta. Seems we squandered our past bounty and we're tapped out now.

Maybe there'll be less hunting and fishing pressure now though.

[Bushrat]

There is so much natural gas out there worldwide that it boggles the mind, it has been known about for decades. It was very foreseeable that sooner or later they would come up with economically feasible ways of extracting it. That seems to be happening now and will continue in the future. Problem is Alberta has put a whole lot of it's eggs in a basket/budget dependent on income from natural gas sales while ignoring certain future market change due to other countries developing their own reserves. As technology changes and allows for economical extraction Alberta will eventually become a player of minor consequence in the natural gas business.

[deanmc]

Hey if you are going to cheer for supply and demand pricing structure best not be complaining out loud now.

[Goater]

Maybe we should try the OPEC whine and ask for our compensation for not selling as much gas.Think that would fly?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle6926219.ece

[Janitor Pants]

Must be a slow news week, that seems like a non-story to me.

That being said, most companies are now exploring shale gas both here in Alberta and Northern BC, it is simply a matter of companies getting with the times and utilizing new exploration and completions technologies. It will mean less work for a lot of rig hands but at this point most everybody in the patch should know that it is a continual boom and bust cycle.

Without disclosing too much information, I can say that the privately owned natural gas company that I work for has been approved to drill 50 wells in the new year, and pending the price of natural gas could expand that forecast to 250 - 300 wells. So there is some hope out there for the future.

[Map Maker]

this is something i would like to see.
Natural gas fill up stations proposed by encana.



http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet...06922/GIStory/

One guy looks down, two guys look up.

[BallCoeff.435]

Originally Posted by Map Maker

this is something i would like to see.
Natural gas fill up stations proposed by encana.



http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet...06922/GIStory/

One guy looks down, two guys look up.

JESUS CHRIST, NO; not another propane-like debacle all over again!

Anyone who's still around who had a big-ass, heavy propane tank installed in their truck box just to take advantage of a slight, temporary price advantage in propane over gasoline knows what an abortion that was.

On top of that, propane even had a better heat content than 'natural gas' (commercial methane) does, so compressed natural gas would be even harder to deal with and have less energy than propane, liter for liter.

You'd have to build up an entire new infrastructure for selling methane at filling stations, distributing it, and (especially) carrying it in huge, heavy, expensive reinforced-fiber or steel tanks in every vehicle. That's nuts.

What we should really be doing is refinery-based conversion of natural gas into very high-grade diesel fuel, based on the Fischer-Tropf chemical process. Then, everyone would get to tank up at normal filling stations in the normal way, and drive quiet, smaller, high-output turbo diesel engines like most Europeans do now. No muss, no fuss.

[ESOXangler]

Encana in wabasca has their own nat gas fill station and runs all their trucks off it and judging by the way the operators pass me on the road theres no problems with it lol

[BallCoeff.435]

Judging from how big highway rigs have been passing me on the trans-canada for decades, there's no fundamental problem with diesel either.

There is a problem with retrofitting personal-size vehicles (anything without air brakes) with compressed-gas fuel tanks, however. And the smaller the vehicle the worse it gets.

It's best to just leave the methane-to-diesel conversion to the refineries or petrochemical plants, and run high-grade diesel product in more cars and light trucks.

Or better yet, just run a registered electric motor in your personal vehicle from public overhead cables along primary commuting routes. That way you don't have to carry around heavy fuel of any kind as well as buy and carry and maintain an expensive combustion engine, or even batteries. The torque response and acceleration of electric motors is awesome, too.