A UND scientist, experienced with China’s most active oilfields, eyes bigger extraction payoffs for the Bakken.
Dongmei Wang, a soft-spoken scientist in UND’s Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, does her work far from the heart of the booming Bakken shale oil play in western North Dakota; still, she just might be the best friend the oil industry has.
The recent transplant from China, where she worked 22 years for Petrochina in that country’s most active oilfields, followed her son to America when he enrolled at the University of Michigan. Wanting a new challenge and a quieter setting to call home, Wang took a job at UND as a petroleum engineering scientist, working with her boss, Will Gosnold, and his Petroleum Research, Education and Entrepreneurship Center of Excellence (PREEC), which already had been researching the relatively untapped geological formation known as the “Bakken.”
An internationally recognized petroleum engineer, Wang’s scientific experience in the Chinese oil industry only added to the burgeoning expertise and capabilities that have been amassing at UND’s School of Engineering and Mines.
Wang now finds herself on the cusp of one of the most exciting oil exploration projects in the United States. To put it simply: UND researchers are studying the unique geological makeup of the Bakken shale and determining feasible, efficient ways to draw more “black gold” from its cavernous pores — a feat that is now akin to squeezing blood from a turnip.
Despite the unique challenges of the Bakken, oil companies have been flocking to the region to stake their claims. Favorable per-barrel prices and invasive “fracking” techniques, tailor-made for this kind of formation, have made it sufficiently lucrative for the oil industry to return to North Dakota in a huge way.
The activity has propelled North Dakota to third among oil-producing states, by some estimations.
And this is despite the fact companies are recovering only a tiny amount of the oil that’s in place, using existing methods.
Imagine if that extraction success was as much as 30 times greater, or more!
That’s what Wang and her colleagues do every day.
“Right now it looks promising,” she said. “It seems like the potential is huge.”
Wang is the principal investigator in a three-year $625,000 research project that is starting to show positive signs. The objective is to determine whether a special blend of surfactant solutions can influence the Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota enough so that oil recovery can be improved through “imbibition” — displacement of one fluid by another.
Another important factor is that the surfactant solution should not damage the formation, Wang says.
The research could be significant because, even at current low percentage recovery rates, oil companies are making billions of dollars and boosting the state’s economy along the way.
Wang estimates that every 1 percent increase in recovery could lead to an increase of 2 billion to 4 billion barrels of domestic oil production.
Dongmei Wang is exploring the potential of the “imbibition” process — displacement of one fluid by another — for boosting oil yields in North Dakota’s Bakken formation.
Cores and Models
Wang’s research is a multistep process that involves computer modeling at UND and analyses of core samples from private-sector oil giant Hess Corp. and the Wilson M. Laird Core and Sample Library on the UND campus.
Eventually, Wang will work with oil companies to reproduce the results with a large-scale model in the Bakken.
“If all goes well, we hope that we will have something ready along those lines by 2014,” Wang said.
One of the challenges so far has been the limited availability of actual Bakken shale core samples on which to conduct the research. For this reason, the first studies have been done on “Pierre” shale samples, taken from an outcrop in northern North Dakota.
The initial Pierre shale tests using the surfactant imbibition process were encouraging, harvesting as much as 30 percent of the available oil. That kind of success convinced UND researchers to push further with the project.
“That goes to show you the potential,” she said. The goal now is to duplicate those results in the Bakken.
Another challenge is the limited amount of available laboratory data on Bakken shale characteristics compared to other kinds of oil-bearing shale and non-shale geological formations around the world.
The fact that UND scientists like Wang are pioneering research in this area makes it even more crucial that their findings are checked and double-checked.
Private and Public Partners
Wang knows that oil companies are placing a lot of hope in her research, and she doesn’t want to lead them down a wrong road when the scientific proof doesn’t support it. Companies such as CorsisTech, Tiorco and Hess Corp. are participating with UND on the project.
“I have to be very careful with my research,” Wang said. “I don’t want to be responsible for the oil industry wasting its money.”
Most of the project cost, about $500,000 worth, is being funded by the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America; the state of North Dakota, which benefits greatly from expanded oil exploration, has chipped in an additional $125,000 through the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
Wang attributes the success of her research to the PREEC team effort at UND and collaborations with top-notch researchers in other departments, such as Julie Lefever, director of the Laird Core and Sample Library. She also lauds the assistance of people such as Ray Butler, a research associate in her department who has been instrumental in dealing with the oil industry, as well as Ronald Matheney and Nels Forsman, professors of geology and geological engineering at UND.
David Dodds | Staff Writer