Horizontal drilling and
hydraulic fracturing
have made it possible
to economically
produce oil and gas
from tight rocks.
2 million barrels of oil equivalent a day
in 2013.
However, while abundant, shale oil
and gas can be difficult to locate and
extract. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing processes are expensive and,
some say, potentially harmful to the environment. Another relatively unknown
fact – especially to industry outsiders –
is that fracking is quite inefficient today:
80 percent of the production comes
from 20 percent of the fracking stages.
Today, horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing recover about 20 percent,
probably less, of the oil in the shale
rocks. According to PacWest, drillers
A NA L Y T I C S
will spend $31 billion in 2013 on suboptimal frack stages across 26,100 wells
in the United States. In response, some
of the largest oil and gas companies
are using big data analytics technologies to improve their exploration and
production.
Big data analytics includes three categories: descriptive analytics, which tells
you what happened and why; predictive
analytics, which tells you what will happen; and prescriptive analytics, which
tells you what will happen, when, why
and how to improve this predicted future.
Marketers, operations experts, financial officers and other business leaders
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