Aberdeen headquartered energy consultancy Xodus Group is developing new technologies that will break some of the barriers to making the UK unconventional gas market more commercial.

Xodus recently launched a new Wells and Subsurface division and believes there is huge potential in untapped energy sources such as coal bed methane.

Steve Jewell, Director of Wells and Subsurface has drawn up plans for innovative well architecture. In the US, drilling and production advances over the last decade have turned unconventional gas sources such as coalbed methane (CBM) into increasingly conventional ones. The UK industry is still in its infancy, but Jewell believes there are great opportunities if investment is made in new technologies and with more industry collaboration.

Xodus is working with Surtron Technologies to create an eight-well drilling pad that would drill up to eight horizontal wells from a single pad. This would dramatically reduce the number of surface locations needed and it should reduce the associated land-access problems.

Mr Jewell said: 'This would greatly improve the economics of CBM drilling, so could open up huge possibilities for the UK industry and worldwide. We have drawn up proposals to make funding bids and build industry support.'

The performance of the concept will be assessed using 3D reservoir simulation and compared with other alternative well architectures to demonstrate its production performance.

Mr Jewell added: 'Our innovation would achieve maximum reservoir exposure at minimum cost. The impact will be to permit the economic development of otherwise sub-economic resources and will have a much reduced environmental impact by minimising the number of surface well locations or pads needed.'

In the UK, there are only a handful of companies who deal with coal bed methane (CBM) and most of these are now partnered with large oil and gas operators. The CBM process is extensively used in Australia, Canada and the USA. In America, 10 per cent of the domestic gas supply is derived from CBM.

Another new technology Steve and his team are developing is for water disposal and post-frac fluid recycling in remote areas.

The first step will involve investigating alternative methods for produced water disposal in remote CBM operations and to innovate re-use opportunities for bi-products of the treatment process. The second objective is to consider the sourcing and use of fracture stimulation fluids. The need to properly source, preserve and re-use fluids and other raw materials many times over will be an essential part of the new technology.

Mr Jewell explained: 'This project would deliver a range of alternatives to existing technologies that help deal with fluids in remote or environmentally sensitive areas such as arid desert or frozen tundra. I'm confident it would deliver solutions to further enable cost effective and sustainable exploitation of unconventional gas reserves.'

A third development Xodus intends to bring to fruition is for predicting 'sweet spots' or reservoir zones exhibiting enhanced permeability, which can be critical to the successful exploitation of low permeability reservoirs.

This project will conduct both geological and geophysical studies in CBM and shale and tight gas reservoirs to help identify consistent indicators of 'sweet spots'.

Mr Jewell said: 'Our starting point for this project will be the US where we will review literature and data of existing successfully developed basins. We will also investigate the use of seismic, well logs, CSM and core data to identify sweet spots already exploited. We will then carry out a review of alternative technologies and finally consider drilling methods and dowhole data acquisition to assist in keeping the well within the known reservoir sweet spots.'

CBM production occurs at depths varying from 200m to over 1000m where the coals can be water-saturated and considered unmineable using traditional methods. In the CBM process, the water is removed from the coal by pumping, which decreases the pressure on the gas and allows it to separate from the coal and flow up the well.

The gas is captured and can be exported directly via existing gas pipeline networks.

Steve added: 'In the UK, as in other places, the coal seams can be very different with individual characteristics.

We need to determine how best to develop them from both a technical and commercial perspective. Typically the virgin UK coals suitable for CBM extraction are relatively thin and deep. These properties lend themselves to horizontal well drilling, traditionally a high tech and high cost solution deployed in the North Sea. This is why CBM has not been viable in the past, but things are changing.'

Tags: Xodus Group