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Technologies
Oil and Natural Gas Supply
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Oil and natural gas are the lifeblood of our economy, accounting for more than 60 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. To meet projected
demand, our Nation has a vital interest in ensuring that competitively-priced domestic natural gas and oil remain part of the U.S. energy portfolio for decades to come. Read More. |
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Announcements
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Decade of Discovery: The U.S. Department of Energy has released "A Decade of Discovery" in which many of the National Laboratories' most significant scientific discoveries and technological innovations over the past ten years is highlighted. Read how the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and other National Laboratories have partnered with industry to develop a breakthrough technology, Microseismic Monitoring, that is helping oil and gas producers connect their wells with the hydrocarbons stored in networks of fractures found in many of today’s most promising domestic oil and gas accumulations.
Read article on Microseismic Monitoring
Oil and Gas R&D RFPs Issued
The first round of requests for proposals (RFPs) have been issued for the 2008 solicitation of ultra-deepwater research projects under Title IX, Subtitle J, Section 999 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Six RFPs have been posted to the RPSEA website as of Tuesday, December 23, 2008. Interested parties are encouraged to click on the link above for information. Responders are encouraged to submit proposals well in advance of the due date; March 3, 2009. The RFPs are focused on the following areas:
- Equations of State (EOS) Improvement for Extreme High Pressure and High Temperature
- Coil Tubing Drilling and Intervention System Using Cost Effective Vessels
- New Safety Barrier Testing Methods
- Deepwater Riserless Intervention Systems
- Modeling and Simulation of Managed Pressure Drilling for Improved Design, Risk Assessment, Training, and Operations; and
- Student Design Projects and Novel Technology Solicitation.
A second round of RFPs on other topic areas related to the ultra-deepwater element of the program will be released in the near future. For additional details related to the Department’s Subtitle J, Section 999 research program, please refer to the 2008 Annual Plan, available here.
New Research Solicitation Published
Requests for Proposals have been published soliciting research ideas focused on two areas: developing technologies to enable the economic development of additional unconventional shale gas and tight sand resources, and developing technologies to help small producers increase production from mature fields. These RFPs are being announced pursuant to Title IX, Subtitle J, Section 999 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and are part of the second annual round of solicitations to be announced by the consortium in charge of administering research contracts under this legislation, the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). Details of these RFPs are now available on the RPSEA website homepage, or link directly to the RPSEA Request for Proposals page. An additional solicitation for research projects focused on ultra-deepwater technologies will follow soon.
Initiatives to Enhance Industry’s Understanding of the Bakken [PDF-449KB]
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Announcements Archive >
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While domestic resources remain plentiful, increasingly, these resources are concentrated in geologically challenging and operationally complex settings such as deep formations, deepwater offshore, and lower permeability formations. Their recovery requires innovative exploration and production technologies, along with sustained attention to environmental protection.
Through NETL, scientists and engineers in government and industry are focusing on innovative solutions to these challenges. NETL supports research, development, and field demonstrations of advanced technologies to enhance near-term and mid-term supplies through the efficient use of the nation's existing resources. NETL also performs analyses of natural gas and petroleum issues to support policy decisions and to ensure a balanced R&D portfolio.
- To help industry increase supplies of oil and gas in the near term, NETL focuses on developing low-cost technologies to expand the economic life expectancy of individual wells, spurring innovations to find and tap missed or bypassed reservoirs in the field, and transferring new technology to the thousands of small and independent operators that account for the lion’s share of the U.S. industry.
- Over the mid term, NETL’s E&P efforts target critical emerging resources -- such as tight gas, deep gas, and heavy oil -- that are currently poorly understood and underutilized. These unconventional and emerging resources require the application of new technologies to make recovery economic. Such efforts have borne fruit in the past. Earlier DOE-funded research has catalyzed an unconventional natural gas industry that currently accounts for 30 percent of the Nation’s gas supply—a share expected to grow.
- Sustaining natural gas and oil supplies over the long term will require adding fundamental new sources to the nation's resource base. As a result, NETL is leading a national R&D effort to evaluate methane hydrates and other potential future resources that may one day contribute to our nation’s supply demands.
Meeting National Goals
NETL’s RD&D efforts contribute to the following vital national goals:
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Secure and reliable energy supplies
The United States is home to an abundant supply of both natural gas and oil, yet there exists a supply and demand gap because much of the conventional resource base has been harvested. Future sources of supply will come from more remote locations, increasingly complex and deeper reservoirs, and more environmentally sensitive areas. New technologies will certainly be needed to develop these resources in an environmentally and economically acceptable manner. With advanced technologies, our Nation can continue producing these valuable domestic resources while also meeting environmental protection goals.
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![Conventional / Unconventional Gas](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090116113036im_/http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/images/NatGasChart.jpg) |
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America's demand for natural gas is expected to grow as much as 50% by
2025. Unconventional gas resources, much of which currently are not
economically recoverable, are expected to bear much of the burden of
meeting this demand. |
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- Clean power generation
The clean-burning properties of natural gas make it a preferred fuel for power generation. Indeed, natural gas consumption in the power generation sector is projected to increase from 5.0 trillion cubic feet in 2003 to 9.4 trillion cubic feet in 2025. Cost-effective production, processing, transmission, and storage technologies will enable natural gas to fulfill this central role in meeting our Nation’s growing electricity needs.
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