Release Date: September 8, 2003

MORGANTOWN, WV - Drilling for natural gas is not as simple as digging a hole. It is a complex process that involves cutting rock, transporting cuttings to the surface, controlling the flow of gases and fluids into the wellbore, and preserving the producing potential of the target formation - all while minimizing environmental damage. What's more, shallow and conventional gas resources in the United States are being depleted, so that drillers must do all of this miles below the earth's surface, at very high temperatures, and at pressures hundreds of times greater than atmospheric pressure.

To meet the increasing challenges of drilling for natural gas, the Department of Energy (DOE) has selected two new projects to advance drilling performance.

In two-year, cost-shared projects, MASI LLC and Terralog Technologies will investigate "smart drilling" options to increase productivity, improve drilling safety, and reduce costs. Managed by DOE's Strategic Center for Natural Gas, the projects support the President's National Energy Policy, which calls for boosting domestic production of natural gas to ensure an adequate future supply at reasonable prices.

Estimates indicate that U.S. natural gas consumption will increase by more than 50 percent by 2025. DOE's Office of Fossil Energy works to maintain secure, reliable, and affordable supplies of natural gas to meet this increasing demand. The Strategic Center for Natural Gas implements all elements of DOE's natural gas research, "from borehole to burner tip," and oversees a comprehensive research and technology development program. Projects to enhance natural gas exploration and production in the near-, mid-, and long-term are a key component of the research program.

Descriptions of the two new projects follow:

• MASI LLC, Houston, TX, will conduct a two-phase project to determine how micro-bubbles called aphrons help seal permeable and fractured wellbore rock during drilling, minimizing reservoir damage. An aphron is a uniquely structured micro-bubble of air or gas created by combining surfactants and polymers in drilling fluid. Aphrons fill fractures and pores in rocks and other media, creating seals that stop or slow the entry of fluid. With damage to the gas reservoir minimized, drillers are able to use conventional drilling equipment to complete wells that previously would have required more expensive drilling methods.

  This two-year project has a total budget of $1,234,607. DOE's share is $568,845.

• Terralog Technologies, Arcadia, CA, will undertake a comprehensive research project to advance the basic understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in combined percussion and rotary drilling.

  There is clear evidence that the combination of percussion and rotary drilling provides significant improvement in penetration rates in hard-rock environments. This has led to advances in "percussion" or "hammer" drills using both mud and air systems. However, the fundamental rock mechanics associated with percussion drilling have not been fully defined and adequately modeled. In addition, there are no practical simulation tools available to help design and optimize percussion drilling operations. As a result, cost and reliability concerns have limited the wide-spread application of percussion drilling by industry. By addressing these needs, the project will help industry recover vast untapped gas resources contained in deep, hard-rock environments more economically and efficiently.

• The two-year project has a total budget of $650,656. DOE's share is $520,525.