The Energy Information Angency (EIA), the ISA, counted that by 2035 the extraction of the light tight oil from the current sites will have grown twice, and thus it will approach 1,23 mln barrels. The year of 2012 sees the increase of light tight oil extraction up to 720 thousand barrels per day. This will make 12,5% of the whole oil extraction. This assessment is based on the modern demographic and technological tendencies. According to the EIA assessment the general oil production in the USA will have reached 6,7 mln barrels per day by 2020. This level will have been the highest rate since 1994. Approximately 18% of this figure will be accounted for by the light tight oil. The EIA forecasts show that by 2035 he light tight oil production will have made about 20% of the whole volume of oil extraction in the USA.
It is obvious that light tight oil is extracted from plate. In order to extract the oil from under the earth it is necessary to burst the rock with the help of explosive mixture and leave the fractures open, while the oil is being pumped. The technology is very similar to that of the shale gas extraction, still at the extraction of the oil the horizontal drilling is performed at greater depths, at the level where the heavier condensate and the oil itself. The pipe is installed at the same level.
The Bakken oilfield is a great example to that. According to 5 year old assessments the potential of the said oilfield was approximately 151 mln barrels per year, but after additional exploration with the help of the three-dimension seismic technologies this figure increased up to 11 billion barrels. The profitability of the light tight oil increases with the time flow. The extraction technology grows cheaper due to the decrease of the number of hydraulic bursts necessary for the oil to flow into the pipe. But for the Bakken oilfield there are several more very profitable oilfields, as for example the Eagle Ford oilfield in Texas or New Mexico. The industrial commission has estimated the general extraction of light tight oil at the Three Forks (North Dakota) and Bakken oilfields as 545 barrels per day. The light tight oil is a great aid to the USA in what concerns its independence from the outer importers provision.
The analysts believe that by the year of 2030 the USA may have stopped to depend on the oil delivery from the Gulf countries. Still, the specialists state that the light tight oil will not have great influence of the price for oil at the markets, as beside the light tight oil USA extracts oil from the World ocean bottom. That is why in several cases the expenses for oil extraction do not lessen, but grow. In Russia, in our turn, we’ve paid attention at the light tight oil extraction technology. Bazhenov suite is one of the greatest light tight oilfields. This oilfield is planned to be developed by Rosneft together with the Exxon Mobile, USA, and Statoil, Norway. However according to the analysts the extraction of the 700 thousand barrels of the light tight oil will not influence the prices for oil. There are several reasons for that. The first is that these volumes are relatively small and they are aimed firstly for the inner consumption. The second reason is that the expense for the light tight oil extraction is for the present moment not as low as it is desired to be. The third reason is connected to the ecological factor. The light tight oil extraction may cause an irrecoverable damage to nature, as soon as its side effect is ground water aquifers and soil pollution. In addition to that the decrease of Iranian oil export and the conflict over the nuclear program of this country play their role in the evening the level of increase of the proposal due to the light tight oil. Still in the nearest future the increase of the level of the proposal of the light tight oil is able to influence on the costs of the hydrocarbons. The efficiency of the methods of oil extraction from the plate is constantly growing, though at the moment it is relatively low. Now the newest technologies, aimed at a more beneficial way of light tight oil extraction, are being developed, at that the cost of oil will grow for more than 30 USD per barrel. Most experts see the development of ways of light tight oil extraction a future of the energetics.
