shale oil

Oil and natural gas production has historically been from limestones and sandstones, with shale formations acting as the source rock and being ignored as a primary reservoir due to its low permeability and porosity. Horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing has now enabled commercial production from the typically overlooked shale formations. Industry was its own worst enemy as shale formations with an abundance of natural gas such as the Barnett, Haynesville, Marcellus, etc experienced a rapid growth in production, creating an oversupply which drove natural gas prices down from ~$13/mcf to ~$2/mcf.

Thus more recently, focus has shifted to applying these new techniques (horizontal drilling & multistage fracking) to oil production as drilling for gas at ~2/mcf is uneconomical.

Oil 101 is a great book but quite outdated. The part on chemistry, transportation, risk are still relevant but when it comes to the future of oil, fracking and shale oil it's not relevant anymore.

No one really talks about "oil shale" anymore, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

amarillobymorning:

I'm also reading Oil 101 and I'll try my best here to clear things up. "Oil Shale" and "Shale Oil" are two totally different concepts that people often confuse.

"Oil Shale", or Kerogen Oil, is simply fine-grained sedimentary rock containing KEROGEN. Kerogen is the organic precursor to crude oil in that it was never buried deep enough in order for the very heavy hydrocarbon molecules to crack into lighter hydrocarbon molecules. Thus, it remains solid kerogen, rather than becoming crude or natural gas.
-Kerogen --> Kerogen Oil/Shale Oil --> Synthetic Crude.
-This is possible, but economically unfeasible and I believe it also consumes more energy than it produces in the form of crude.
-The Green River formation is an example of an Oil Shale deposit.

"Shale Oil", on the other hand, is a subcategory of Light Tight Oil (I think LTO, not Shale Oil, is the proper name). Light Tight Oil is just CRUDE OIL that is trapped in sedimentary rock formations of low permeability, such as siltstones, sandstones, limestones, dolostones, and less commonly, shale. Like macro1 said, Shale is often the source rock, but it can also act as the reservoir rock in some cases. Conventional crude extraction methods don't work b/c of the low permeability of the shale or other low-perm rocks. Hydraulic fracturing, horizontal wells, etc. allow us to extract this crude, hence the Shale Oil/LTO boom.
-The Bakken and Eagle Ford formations are examples of LTO deposits.

***The confusion occurs because when Downey refers to "Shale Oil", he is referring to "Oil Shale", not to Light Tight Oil. Thus, he is correct in stating that Oil Shale is still economically unfeasible.

***Please note that I'm just a college student who has an interest in Oil & Gas books, so please correct me if any of my post is incorrect.

Thanks for clearing that up. Keep reading and if you don't mind send me a pm with books you have read and think are worthwhile.