Tight oil

By comparison, the number of new producing oil and gas wells (both conventional and unconventional) completed in 2012 globally outside the United States and Canada is less than 4,000.

[10] Type I has little matrix porosity and permeability – leading to fractures dominating both storage capacity and fluid flow pathways.

Prerequisites for exploitation include being able to obtain rights to drill, easier in the United States and Canada where private owners of subsurface rights are motivated to enter into leases; the availability of expertise and financing, easier in the United States and Canada where there are many independent operators and supporting contractors with critical expertise and suitable drilling rigs; infrastructure to gather and transport oil; and water resources for use in hydraulic fracturing.

[needs update] The large increase in tight oil production is one of the reasons behind the price drop in late 2014.

[12] As a consequence, exploitation of tight oil tends to be drilling intensive with many new wells needed to ramp up and maintain production over time.

Following are estimates of technically recoverable volumes of tight oil associated with shale formations, made by the US Energy Information Administration in 2013.

[14] In September 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected October tight oil production in the U.S. at 7.6 million barrels per day.

[17] Unexpectedly, this faster dynamics can also entail lesser carbon lock-in effects and stranded asset risks with implications for climate policies.

Shown are conceptual illustrations of types of oil and gas wells. A vertical well is producing from a conventional oil and gas deposit (right). Also shown are wells producing from unconventional formations: a vertical coalbed methane well (second from right); a horizontal well producing from a shale formation (center); and a well producing from a tight sand formation (left).