Texas drillers may have found a solution to the stubborn natural gas glut that’s forced them to either burn it off into the air, or pay others to take it away. At least five producers, led by EOG Resources Inc., are experimenting with shooting highly-pressurized natural gas into past-their-prime wells that have seen their output slip. The wells are then capped to build up pressure inside with the aim of dislodging any oil still hiding in the rock.
The methodology’s been used in conventional wells elsewhere with both natural gas and carbon dioxide for years, but it’s just now emerging in America’s fracked shale fields. The win-win goal: The trapped gas is put to work, and there’s a 30%-to-70% gain in oil output from older wells, according to EOG. As the shale boom ages, the potential could be extensive.
“If widely adopted, if it doesn’t lead to challenges and the formations behave as we expect, then we expect it could utilize 25% of the associated gas produced,” said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, the chief energy officer at the University of Houston. Natural gas almost always comes up with oil during drilling, but it’s increasingly become a largely unwelcome byproduct in Texas. With pipeline capacity for gas limited, prices there have cratered, dropping as low as minus $9 per million British thermal units in early April.