A Qualitative in Field Test to Characterize Oil-Shale Reservoirs

Shale oil recovery, despite its extraction costs and low yield per shale matrix is becoming a more feasible solution to the rapidly emerging global fuel demands.  However, many oil-shale reserves are located several thousand feet below the earth’s surface, which makes it extremely difficult and expensive to extract.  In addition, the quality of the shale matrix may have a broad range such that the potential yield through and other methods may vary significantly across neighboring reservoirs. And determining the quality of the oil-shale matrix and its potential yield of synthetic/tight oil using laboratory analytical methods can take several weeks. This work presents a rapid and simple qualitative “in-field” test-tube test method that categorizes and prioritizes a given shale matrix based upon its composite. This test method can be a significant cost benefit and a proof positive indicator of where to focus exploration and recovery interest.