A few years ago, water-based or “hydraulic” fracturing emerged as a viable, cost-effective technique for coaxing large volumes of natural gas and crude oil out of U.S. shale formations. Calling it a game-changer is not an overstatement. In the shadows, another approach to fracturing was being developed, one that uses a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or propane gel and appears to offer some noteworthy benefits over tried-and-true hydraulic fracking. Today, we consider the potential for niche applications (and maybe much more) for fracturing that’s based on a hydrocarbon-based gel—not water.
If you work for a producer or oil field services company, you might have a bit of an issue with that title. But just for a moment, put your worries aside and consider the silver lining – huge improvements in our industry’s productivity over the last few years. Things are getting better and better. In fact that is part of the problem. Producers have just become too productive for their own good. We’ve seen the consequences of this kind of productivity improvement before, not in the energy industry, but in electronics. Moore’s law, remember? In today’s posting we’ll look at some of the evidence of huge productivity improvements, what it has meant for production volumes, and the implications for U.S. producers now facing many of the same issues that electronics companies have dealt with for decades.
