Guest “too fracking funny” by David Middleton

Vlad the fractivist…

Russia’s Putin says shale oil technologies are ‘barbaric’
PUBLISHED WED, NOV 20

Sam Meredith

Russian President Vladimir Putin has sharply criticized nations like the U.S. for ignoring the environmental impact of shale oil and gas production, describing it as a “barbaric” process that the Kremlin has no interest in pursuing.

Speaking at a business conference in Moscow Wednesday, Putin said: “Today’s technology of shale oil production and shale gas are without any doubt … barbaric.”

[…]

“You can rest assured that Russia shall always be a responsible actor in the global energy market,” Russia’s Putin said on Wednesday.

CNBC

Liawatha, the fake American Indian…

On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking—everywhere.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 6, 2019

Vlad, the fractivist frackhead…

Nov 20, 2019
Putin: ‘We’ll Never Frack’

Kenneth Rapoza Senior Contributor

We all knew that the Russians, at least in the Kremlin, were no fans of horizontal drilling, best known as fracking for oil and gas. We thought Vladimir Putin might just be jealous.

He’s not.

“We will never frack,” he says. “We don’t need to develop shale oil at all. First, we don’t need to increase the supply of oil to world markets, and we have enough oil we can get from the Arctic shelf,” he says, adding that fracking was “terrible for the environment.”

[…]

The problem with Putin’s statement is that his biggest natural gas company doesn’t think the same way about fracking.

State-owned news agency Sputnik News reported as far back as 2016 that Gazprom was developing its own horizontal drilling capabilities following a ban on tech purchases from the U.S. due to Ukraine-related sanctions.

[…]

Putin has always been a naysayer of shale, with the RT news agency regularly airing features about flaming waters, earthquakes and dirty water caused by fracking.

The International Energy Agency said Bazhenov was the world’s largest source for shale oil and gas in the world, though it is mostly all undeveloped. Gazprom Neft expects to start commercial production from the Bazhenov formation as early as 2025. They have around 30 fracking sites in Russia, according to the company.

Of course, fracking for oil and gas is not the mainstay of Russian hydrocarbons. But it’s something Gazprom Neft is pursuing, whether Putin knows it or not (he probably does).

[…]

Forbes

Gazprom, a real fracking oil & gas company…

Production
Developing hard-to-recover reserves, and improving the viability of mature assets, demands cutting-edge enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques — foremost of which are high-technology wells and multi-stage fracking, as well as the application of new strategies in displacing remaining oil, recovery of which is not possible through traditional methods.

Drilling of high-technology wells
The construction of high-technology wells allows geologically complex structures to be brought into development, enabling hard-to-recover reserves to be brought into production. Hard-to-recover reserves make up 70 percent of Gazprom Neft’s resource base — with the result that 65 percent of drilling volumes in 2017 involved high-technology equipment and facilities — the highest volume in Russia.

A further technology in enhanced oil recovery is the drilling of multilateral wells, increasing the coverage area within strata. The first operational dual-bore well on the Yamal Peninsual, with horizontal wells running to a length of 1,000 metres, was constructed at the Novoportovskoye field.

[…]

Multi-stage fracking
Hydraulic fracking technology, widely used worldwide for several decades, involves the high-pressure injection of a liquid mixture, causing fissures to be formed in the strata through which oil is able to run to the bottom of the well. A proppant agent is then used to keep these fissures open.

With the development of horizontal drilling, multi-stage fracking technology, involving the direct creation of fissures throughout several sections of a well, has become widely used. Today this tends to be used in conjunction with other technologies in enhanced oil recovery, although it is being constantly improved.

In developing complex low-permeability reservoirs the inadequacy of standard multi-stage fracking has become obvious insofar as each newly-fracked zone has to be kept separate from the preceding one by a metal or composite ball. The diameter of these balls is reduced from zone to zone, with the result that the way these wells are constructed makes more than 10 fracking operations impossible. New spaced-perforation technology has no such limitations.

Multi-stage fracking through spaced perforation involves multi-use compacted “cushions”-packers which expand under pressure to isolate those areas in which fracking has been completed. Once complete, the cushion deflates to its normal size and the equipment is transported to the next port.

[…]

Development of the Bazhenov formation
The drilling of horizontal wells with multi-stage fracking is the key technology in drilling for shale oil — including in production at the Bazhenov formation, which is very similar in terms of oil occurrence. The most recent insights into the geological structure of the Bazhenov formation suggest there are two key formations: an oil source bed, containing kerogenic shale (polymeric organic matter, which appears in such formations as shale oil) and interstratified beds containing light oil. The latter, moreover, comprises some 30 percent of the total depth of the formation. Such complex composition demands specific multi-stage fracking technologies, of which “рlug & perf” is one.

[…]

Gazprom

I couldn’t make this sort of schist up if I was trying.

Is it really possible that Vlad, the Frackhead is as dumb as Liawatha, the fake American Indian? Or is he just a more accomplished liar?

Notes

1. The oil & gas industry contaction for hydraulic fracturing is “frac’ing”, not “fracking”. A hydraulic fracturing operation is called a “frac job”. Frack is a euphemism for the F-bomb.
2. If you don’t approve of my use of “Liawatha”, pretend that I wrote “Fauxcahontas” instead.
3. If you disapprove of the word “frackhead”, pretend I wrote “fractard”.