California Monterey shale draws interest, concerns.

摘要

The state's massive shale formation continues to tempt industry, following a Dec. leasing auction of 18K acres, all of which were purchased. According to information from the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and the US Energy Information Agency, the formation contains an estimated 400B bbl of oil, 15B of which are considered technically recoverable with use of existing technology. The formation possesses some unique geological factors which*could prove challenging to developers; most pertinently, its shale layers are folded rather than stacked, which has resulted in natural cracking of the formation, yielding a great deal of oil already tapped in conventional production operations, but which also make methods such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling less effective. The type of shale in the formation is also less responsive to fracking.