125 years ago, the car was unconventional. 40 years ago the personal computer was unconventional, too. And just 25 years ago, oil and gas was for the first time produced from an unconventional place - the SOURCE rock.
When something unconventional becomes conventional, that is a mark of successful innovation. Most innovations don’t make it as fas as a transformative change. But sometimes, when people truly benefit, the new trend sticks. People have benefitted from better transportation; benefitted from more computer power in a cell phone than in a 1980 mainframe computer; and benefitted from wider energy access of cheap, reliable, abundant and secure energy.
Shale is a marine deposit. In North America ~100 million years ago, a large inland sea like today’s Mediterranean ran from present-day Alberta to South Texas. These marine sediments cover a massive area.
Shale contains kerogen (dead plankton, algae) and fine sediments. Small particles deposited by rivers settle on the ocean bottom together with large quantities of these dead organisms.
Over millions of years, as one layer gets deposited on top of others, this organic material is cooked in Mother Nature’s pressure cooker, where high temperatures and high pressures transform it into oil & gas. For that reason it is called the source rock of hydrocarbons.
Some oil&gas migrates to conventional rock (sandstones/carbonates), where it accumulated in geological traps. That’s the low-hanging fruit frac’rs initially targeted 75 years ago. Most oil&gas, however, remains in the source rock, where it forms a much bigger prospect for future oil & gas production.
Frac’ing the source rock was unconventional when it was first done in the late 1990s. Now, at least in the US, Canada, and an increasing number of other countries, targeting the source rock has become the conventional thing to do.
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