Shale gas resources are abundantly distributed with low porosity and permeability. Horizontal well and fracturing are prior considerations. Fracturing is a widely-used technology to enhance gas production. In this paper, the author (a) investigated the present stimulation of Barnett and Haynesvile gas fields (Fig. 1) in America, Sichuan basin (Fig. 2) in China and Cooper basin (Fig. 3) in Austr...

Untreated shale oil, shale oil treated with HCl aqueous solution and shale oil treated with HCl and furfural were used to do comparative experiments in fixed bed reactors. Nitrogen compounds and condensed aromatics extracted by HCl and furfural were characterized by electrospray ionization Fourier transform cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, resp...

Shale formations are composed of clays, feldspars, carbonates, and quartz as major ingredients. Among all the constituents, clays are the most important parameter from an application point of view because of their possibly sensitive nature; they are further categorised as migrating (illite, kaolinite, and chlorite) and reactive (smectite and mixed layers) clays. Smectite is always considered as...

The direct qualitative and quantitative determination of mineral components in shale rocks is a problem that has not been satisfactorily resolved to date. Infrared spectroscopy (IR) is a non-destructive method frequently used in mineral identification, yet challenging due to the similarity of spectral features resulting from quartz, clay, and feldspar minerals. This study reports on a significa...

This study concerned a stretch of 17 km of a 94-km highway alignment in Southeastern Nigeria that has a high incidence of pavement failure arising from subgrade failure. The subgrade of this section of the roadway is composed of Ekenkpon shale, New Netim marl, and Nkporo shale. Under the Unified Soil Classification System, the shales classify as OH (organic clay) and the marl classifies as MH (...

During the hydraulic fracturing procedure in shale-gas exploitation, the poroelastic properties of shale formation can be altered significantly. However, it is difficult to evaluate these variations using microseismic field data. In this study, we conduct a hydro-fracturing experiment using Longmaxi shale, which is a major formation for shale-gas production in China, to simulate the water injec...

Advanced techniques have greatly promoted the exploitation of shale gas from shale matrix with low permeability. But the gas transport mechanism in shale is still unclear. Due to the multi-scale pore systems in a shale reservoir, viscous flow, slip flow, Knudsen diffusion and adsorption/desorption should be applied to the flowing equation so that it can properly predict gas flow dynamics. Multi...

What do we know about ageing at work? Evidence-based fitness for duty and health in fire fighters. The current enthusiasm for fracking takes me back to the oil crisis of the late 1970s. I had been asked to see a post-thoracotomy patient and, when he recovered, found that his lesion had been pneumoconiotic. When I enquired which mine he worked in, he told me that it had been a shale mine and sin...