Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources: Opportunities and Challenges Coexist

Comment articles published in the MIT Technology Review magazine in September/October said that at least in the next few decades, the world will not be able to get rid of dependence on oil, but by 2030, the supply of such conventional resources can only be from the current The 79 million barrels/day increased to 85 million barrels/day. However, during the same period, the demand for liquid fuels is expected to increase from 86 million barrels/day to 106 million barrels/day.

Although more than half of the growth can be met through the use of other fuels (such as biofuels, etc.), the remaining part also has to acquire oil resources that are difficult to extract. In order to obtain these oils, oil companies need to drill in the deep sea to expand production, but this year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has sounded a wake-up call to this kind of activity.

By 2030, the production of oil in deep seawater will increase from 5 million barrels/day to 10 million barrels/day. Moreover, oil companies will increasingly turn to unconventional resources (such as tar sands). The areas with the most abundant reserves of these unconventional resources are Canada and Venezuela, where unconventional oil resources together are believed to exceed the reserves of oil in conventional global oil fields.

According to the Cambridge Energy Research Association, the output of these regions will increase from the current 2.3 million barrels/day to 5.5 million barrels/day by 2030. This increase will meet 16% of the total demand. However, the corresponding environmental impact costs will increase. It also requires a lot of energy to extract and treat tar sands. The greenhouse gas produced is two to four times that of conventional oil extraction.

In terms of unconventional gas resources, the United States and Canada have made breakthroughs in recent years. For example, 45% of electricity in the United States comes from coal-fired power generation and 23% from gas-fired power generation. If half of the coal-fired electricity is replaced with natural gas, then 20% of the US's carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation can be eliminated.

The United States has already achieved some gains in the exploration of unconventional natural gas resources and is optimistic that shale gas can be economically exploited. At the current level of consumption, these resources can meet the needs of the United States for decades. The globally known natural gas supply adds up to 150 times the global average annual consumption, and this estimate does not include unconventional resources outside of North America.