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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2022

Gulf of Mexico Health & Air Quality Ii: Mapping Methane Emission Plumes Using Sunglint-Configured Imagery for Monitoring Offshore Oil and Gas Activity

Offshore oil and gas production in the United States is a major source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for nearly 30% of global oil and gas production. Methane venting and flaring are primary contributors to offshore emissions, and monitoring these activities is crucial for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Limited ground truthing and intermittent offshore satellite revisits make monitoring venting and flaring challenging. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) oversee offshore oil and gas activity but rely primarily on operator-reported data. The non-profit organization SkyTruth monitors natural resources like methane and identifies sources of fugitive emissions. By combining BOEM and BSEE’s operational data along with observations from Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Landsat 9 OLI-2, and PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa (PRISMA), the team further identified ultra-emitter point sources in the Gulf of Mexico using sunglint-configured imagery. We quantified these plume emission rates using the methodology from Varon et al. (2020). The team found three plumes in the Gulf of Mexico occurring between 2020 and 2022 using Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat 9 OLI-2 imagery, in addition to the single plume identified by the Gulf of Mexico Health & Air Quality I team, and successfully quantified three plumes. Our statistical retrieval of three PRISMA images tasked over areas of interest yielded no methane plumes, despite a successful test of a known plume in Assam, India. These analyses serve as a proof of concept for the utility of remote sensing for methane emission monitoring offshore, which can complement regulator emission inventories and validate self-reported operator records.

sunglint↗
DOE OSTI2026

Oil and Gas Recovery Capability

Oil and gas recovery increasingly relies on stimulation and production strategies that involve complex interactions between rock deformation, fractures, and fluid flow underground. Conventional modeling approaches often simplify or separate these effects, which can limit their ability to accurately predict performance in fractured or geologically complex reservoirs.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2025

Application of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Systems for Powering Safety Monitoring Systems of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations, OESI 2.0 M-1 T-1-P1.1 – Objective 3 Report: Collocation of OTEC with Offshore Oil and Gas Activities

This report is a component of a comprehensive research initiative aimed at evaluating the technoeconomic feasibility of deploying Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems to power safety monitoring systems for offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of America (GOA). The overarching study has three primary objectives: summarizing existing oil and gas equipment monitoring systems, modeling OTEC as a renewable marine energy source, and exploring the collocation of OTEC power sources with offshore oil and gas activities to offset power demand. This report specifically addresses Objective 3, focusing on the integration of OTEC systems with floating oil and gas facilities.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2022

Geochemistry and Multiomics Data Differentiate Streams in Pennsylvania Based on Unconventional Oil and Gas Activity

Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction is increasing exponentially around the world, as new technological advances have provided cost-effective methods to extract hard-to-reach hydrocarbons. While UOG has increased the energy output of some countries, past research indicates potential impacts in nearby stream ecosystems as measured by geochemical and microbial markers. Here, we utilized a robust data set that combines 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (DNA), metatranscriptomics (RNA), geochemistry, and trace element analyses to establish the impact of UOG activity in 21 sites in northern Pennsylvania. These data were also used to design predictive machine learning models to determine the UOG impact on streams. We identified multiple biomarkers of UOG activity and contributors of antimicrobial resistance within the order Burkholderiales. Furthermore, we identified expressed antimicrobial resistance genes, land coverage, geochemistry, and specific microbes as strong predictors of UOG status. Of the predictive models constructed (n = 30), 15 had accuracies higher than expected by chance and area under the curve values above 0.70. The supervised random forest models with the highest accuracy were constructed with 16S rRNA gene profiles, metatranscriptomics active microbial composition, metatranscriptomics active antimicrobial resistance genes, land coverage, and geochemistry (n = 23). The models identified the most important features within those data sets for classifying UOG status. These findings identified specific shifts in gene presence and expression, as well as geochemical measures, that can be used to build robust models to identify impacts of UOG development.

16S rRNA↗
DOE OSTI2020

Emerging Trends in Biological Treatment of Wastewater From Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction

Unconventional oil and gas exploration generates an enormous quantity of wastewater, commonly referred to as flowback and produced water (FPW). Limited freshwater resources and stringent disposal regulations have provided impetus for FPW reuse. Organic and inorganic compounds released from the shale/brine formation, microbial activity, and residual chemicals added during hydraulic fracturing bestow a unique as well as temporally varying chemical composition to this wastewater. Studies indicate that many of the compounds found in FPW are amenable to biological degradation, indicating biological treatment may be a viable option for FPW processing and reuse. This review discusses commonly characterized contaminants and current knowledge on their biodegradability, including the enzymes and organisms involved. Further, a perspective on recent novel hybrid biological treatments and application of knowledge gained from omics studies in improving these treatments is explored.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Application of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Systems for Powering Safety Monitoring Systems of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations. OESI 2.0 M-1 T-1-P1.1 – Objective 1 Interim Report: Summary of Offshore Oil and Gas Well Monitoring Systems and Process Power Requirements

This report is part of a comprehensive research initiative aimed at evaluating the technoeconomic feasibility of deploying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions monitoring systems powered by small-scale renewable energy sources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The study has three primary objectives: summarizing available GHG monitoring systems for the OCS, modeling a renewable marine energy source (specifically ocean thermal energy conversion, or OTEC), and modeling the collocation of OTEC power sources with offshore oil and gas activities to offset power demand.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2019

Surface Water Microbial Community Response to the Biocide 2,2-Dibromo-3-Nitrilopropionamide, Used in Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction

Production of unconventional oil and gas continues to rise, but the effects of high-density hydraulic fracturing (HF) activity near aquatic ecosystems are not fully understood. A commonly used biocide in HF, 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), was studied in microcosms of HF-impacted (HF+) versus HF-unimpacted (HF-) surface water streams to (i) compare the microbial community response, (ii) investigate DBNPA degradation products based on past HF exposure, and (iii) compare the microbial community response differences and similarities between the HF biocides DBNPA and glutaraldehyde. The microbial community responded to DBNPA differently in HF-impacted versus HF-unimpacted microcosms in terms of the number of 16S rRNA gene copies quantified, alpha and beta diversity, and differential abundance analyses of microbial community composition through time. The differences in microbial community changes affected degradation dynamics. HF-impacted microbial communities were more sensitive to DBNPA, causing the biocide and by-products of the degradation to persist for longer than in HF-unimpacted microcosms. A total of 17 DBNPA by-products were detected, many of them not widely known as DBNPA by-products. Many of the brominated by-products detected that are believed to be uncharacterized may pose environmental and health impacts. Similar taxa were able to tolerate glutaraldehyde and DBNPA; however, DBNPA was not as effective for microbial control, as indicated by a smaller overall decrease of 16S rRNA gene copies/ml after exposure to the biocide, and a more diverse set of taxa was able to tolerate it. These findings suggest that past HF activity in streams can affect the microbial community response to environmental perturbation such as that caused by the biocide DBNPA. IMPORTANCE Unconventional oil and gas activity can affect pH, total organic carbon, and microbial communities in surface water, altering their ability to respond to new environmental and/or anthropogenic perturbations. These findings demonstrate that 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), a common hydraulic fracturing (HF) biocide, affects microbial communities differently as a consequence of past HF exposure, persisting longer in HF-impacted (HF+) waters. These findings also demonstrate that DBNPA has low efficacy in environmental microbial communities regardless of HF impact. These findings are of interest, as understanding microbial responses is key for formulating remediation strategies in unconventional oil and gas (UOG)-impacted environments. Moreover, some DBNPA degradation by-products are even more toxic and recalcitrant than DBNPA itself, and this work identifies novel brominated degradation by-products formed.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

JISEA Annual Meeting: Clean Energy for Oil and Gas Topic Table

Presentation on clean energy for oil and gas topic discussion table at the 2022 JISEA annual meeting. Many refineries may have wind and solar resources and clean energy technology costs are declining. JISEA created an oil and gas consortium including Baker Hughes, Conoco Phillips, Extraction Oil & Gas, INGAA Foundation, and Kinder Morgan to explore potential pathways for integrating clean energy into oil and gas operations. This presentation goes over JISEA case studies that demonstrate reliable and affordable clean power for oil and gas operations. JISEA used the REopt Energy Planning Platform and evaluated several potential future scenarios.

clean energy↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluating Production Implications of Pressure Maintenance in Unconventional Oil and Gas Wells using a Machine Learning Modeling Approach: Case Study in the Permian Basin

This study implements the proprietary machine learning-based model (model) developed under the 2022 study titled “Evaluating the Impact of Proprietary Oil & Gas Data on Machine Learning Model Performance Using a Quasi-Experimental Analytical Approach” for forecasting unconventional oil and gas production using well data from the Permian Basin. The model, developed using an exclusive dataset that includes time series production data from an operator in the Permian Basin, is designed to jointly predict daily oil, gas, and water production for horizontal wells as a function of bottomhole pressure drawdown, spatial placement across the study domain, and well-completion attributes. In this study, the model was explicitly applied to explore its utility to evaluate the impact of varying drawdown strategies on the production forecast of a well in the Permian Basin dataset. Managing pressure drawdown has been identified as a way to improve estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) from unconventional shale wells due to the stress-dependent nature of fractures in shale reservoirs. Research has shown that applying a lower pressure drawdown helps to maintain the reservoir conductivity, resulting in higher productivity over the life of a well. Historic bottomhole pressure data from the well over time was used as a benchmark from which to set more and less aggressive pressure decline rates as bounding modeling cases. All pressure decline rates/strategies were forecasted over 5 years, and the model was used to generate oil, water, and gas prediction over the same timeframe. This report presents the results from the production forecast and discusses potential operational and economic implications, with contrasting perspectives between well productivity and profitability given typical oil and gas economics and the volatility in the oil and gas market.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2023

Temporal Trends of Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Population Exposures to Upstream Oil and Gas Development in California

People living near oil and gas development are exposed to multiple environmental stressors that pose health risks. Some studies suggest these risks are higher for racially and socioeconomically marginalized people, which may be partly attributable to disparities in exposures. We examined whether racially and socioeconomically marginalized people in California are disproportionately exposed to oil and gas wells and associated hazards. We longitudinally assessed exposure to wells during three time periods (2005–2009, 2010–2014, and 2015–2019) using sociodemographic data at the census block group‐level. For each block group and time period, we assessed exposure to new, active, retired, and plugged wells, and cumulative production volume. We calculated risk ratios to determine whether marginalized people disproportionately resided near wells (within 1 km). Averaged across the three time periods, we estimated that 1.1 million Californians (3.0%) lived within 1 km of active wells. Nearly 9 million Californians (22.9%) lived within 1 km of plugged wells. The proportion of Black residents near active wells was 42%–49% higher than the proportion of Black residents across California, and the proportion of Hispanic residents near active wells was 4%–13% higher than their statewide proportion. Disparities were greatest in areas with the highest oil and gas production, where the proportion of Black residents was 105%–139% higher than statewide. Socioeconomically marginalized residents also had disproportionately high exposure to wells. Though oil and gas production has declined in California, marginalized communities persistently had disproportionately high exposure to wells, potentially contributing to health disparities.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2023

Subsurface Characterization for Evaluating Geothermal Resource Potential from Existing Oil and Gas Wells in Tuttle, Oklahoma

Oil and gas (O&G) wells often encounter co-produced hot water, possibly suitable for geothermal direct-use applications. The City of Tuttle is located on the eastern part of the Anadarko sedimentary basin in Oklahoma with high heat-in-place potential and recovery capability at depth. This study aims at demonstrating the potential of geothermal energy production for direct-use applications in two public schools and 250 nearby houses in Tuttle via repurposing existing O&G wells. In this scope, geochemistry, geology, and borehole log data were collected and incorporated into a 3D conceptual subsurface model. A digital elevation model (DEM) was used to represent the study area topography with four O&G wells. In addition, hydrogeochemical characteristics of the geothermal fluid and scaling potential were analyzed using ternary diagrams and chemical ratios to develop mixing models. The subsurface geology model indicated that the study area primarily consists of Permian to Mississippian Sandstone and Limestone formations, implying a porosity ranging between 12% and 22%, and a permeability up to 3.90E-14 m2 in certain reservoir levels. The reservoir temperature is expected to be ranging between 80 degrees C to 95 degrees C around 3 km depth with an average temperature gradient of 22.8 degrees C/km. Chemical geothermometers also estimated the reservoir temperature as 90 degrees C. Findings of the chemical model demonstrated that the geothermal fluid is Sodium-Potassium-Chloride-Sulfate type and possibly mixed with shallow groundwater resulting in higher Ca and Mg concentrations and lower Na/K ratio implying lower calcite scaling. These results comprehensively characterize the potential of geothermal resources in the study area and imply that geothermal energy production by repurposing existing O&G wells is suitable for low-temperature direct-use applications.

gas wells↗
DOE OSTI2023

Optimization of operational strategies for rich gas enhanced oil recovery based on a pilot test in the Bakken tight oil reservoir

Horizontal well drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing have been demonstrated as effective approaches for stimulating oil production in the Bakken tight oil reservoir. However, after multiple years of production, primary oil recovery in the Bakken is generally less than 10% of the estimated original oil in place. Gas huff ‘n’ puff (HnP) has been tested in the Bakken Formation as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method; however, most field pilot test results showed no significant incremental oil production. One of the factors affecting HnP EOR performance is premature gas breakthrough, which is one of the most critical issues observed in the field because of the presence of interwell fractures. Consequently, injected gas rapidly reaches adjacent production wells without contacting reservoir rock and increasing oil recovery. Proper conformance control is therefore needed to avoid early gas breakthrough and improve EOR performance. In this study, a rich gas EOR pilot in the Bakken was carefully analyzed to collect the essential reservoir and operational data. A simulation model with 16 wells was then developed to reproduce the production history and predict the EOR performance with and without conformance control. EOR operational strategies, including single- and multiple-well HnP, with different gas injection constraints were investigated. The simulation results of single-well HnP without conformance control showed that a rich gas injection rate of at least 10 MMscfd was needed to yield meaningful incremental oil production. The strategy of conformance control via water injection could significantly improve oil production in the HnP well, but injecting an excessive amount of water also leads to water breakthrough and loss of oil production in the offset wells. By analyzing the production performance of the wells individually, the arrangement of wells was optimized for multiple-well HnP EOR. The multiwell results showed that rich gas EOR could improve oil production up to 7.4% by employing conformance control strategies. Furthermore, replacing rich gas with propane as the injection gas could result in 14% of incremental oil production.

02 PETROLEUM↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Sunglint-aided Methane Retrieval: Using Sentinel-2 to Quantify Offshore Oil and Gas Emissions

The extraction, production, and transportation of oil and gas via activities such as intentional venting and fugitive emissions are leading contributors to anthropogenic methane emissions. Offshore operations comprise a significant percentage of all oil and gas operations, yet emission monitoring over the ocean is insufficient. Due to low surface reflectance over the ocean, remote sensing measurements offshore are limited. Therefore offshore contributions to the overall global methane budget are unknown. Regulators such as the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) are unable to validate operator-reported methane emission estimates. The NASA DEVELOP Program partnered with BOEM, BSEE, and SkyTruth to identify potential offshore methane sources in the Gulf of Mexico. Drawing upon existing retrieval methods to detect and quantify onshore methane emissions (Varon et al., 2021), we selected sunglint scenes to detect methane plumes over the ocean in Sentinel-2 imagery. We detected two methane plumes at the Constitution complex in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Pointe-Noire, Congo. If expanded, these methods could serve a vital role in validating operator reporting and quantifying climate impacts of offshore oil and gas operations - complementing those of next generation satellites.

Katherine Howell↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment for Evaluating the Global Warming Potential of Geothermal Energy Production Using Inactive Oil and Gas Wells for District Heating in Tuttle, Oklahoma

Repurposing abandoned oil and gas infrastructure for geothermal energy production has great potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study quantified the life cycle global warming potential of geothermal energy production using four inactive oil and gas wells repurposed for district heating in Tuttle, Oklahoma. A cradle-to-grave prospective life cycle assessment was performed to compare GHG emissions between the geothermal district heating system and conventional natural gas-fired heating system from 2020 to 2050. For initial implementation of the geothermal system, we investigated two approaches: 1) repurposing abandoned infrastructure from a nearby oil and gas well site, and 2) production and injection well drillings including new construction of a central heat exchange station. Environmental impacts from the geothermal system were estimated for five scenarios where a natural gas peaking boiler is incorporated to supply peak heat demand. The prospective results indicated that cumulative reduction in GHG emissions from transitioning to the geothermal district heating system increase over time as a function of future renewable resource penetration and technological advancements within electricity, fuel, and steel production. Over 30 years, the global warming potential associated with the district heating demand will have been reduced by up to 24 % with the repurposed system. These results imply that repurposing existing oil and gas infrastructure for geothermal energy systems of district heating will bring future climate benefits.

abandoned oil and gas wells↗
DOE OSTI2024

Comparison of Sub-Ppm Instrument Response Suggests Higher Detection Limits Could Be Used to Quantify Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Infrastructure

Quantifying and controlling fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas facilities remains essential for addressing climate goals, but the costs associated with monitoring millions of production sites remain prohibitively expensive. Current thinking, supported by measurement and simple dispersion modelling, assumes single-digit parts-per-million instrumentation is required. To investigate instrument response, the inlets of three trace-methane (sub-ppm) analyzers were collocated on a facility designed to release gas of known composition at known flow rates between 0.4 and 5.2 kg CH 4 h –1 from simulated oil and gas infrastructure. Methane mixing ratios were measured by each instrument at 1 Hertz resolution over nine hours. While mixing ratios reported by a cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS)-based instrument were on average 10.0 ppm (range 1.8 to 83 ppm), a mid-infrared laser absorption spectroscopy (MIRA)-based instrument reported short-lived mixing ratios far larger than expected (range 1.8 to 779 ppm) with a similar nine-hour average to the CRDS (10.1 ppm). We suggest the peaks detected by the MIRA are likely caused by a micrometeorological phenomenon, where vortex shedding has resulted in heterogeneous methane plumes which only the MIRA can observe. Further analysis suggests an instrument like the MIRA (an optical-cavity-based instrument with cavity size ≤10 cm3 measuring at ≥2 Hz with air flow rates in the order of ≤0.3 slpm at distances of ≤20 m from the source) but with a higher detection limit (25 ppm) could detect enough of the high-concentration events to generate representative 20 min-average methane mixing ratios. Even though development of a lower-cost, high-precision, high-accuracy instrument with a 25 ppm detection threshold remains a significant problem, this has implications for the use of instrumentation with higher detection thresholds, resulting in the reduction in cost to measure methane emissions and providing a mechanism for the widespread deployment of effective leak detection and repair programs for all oil and gas infrastructure.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
NASA NTRS2023

Sources of Formaldehyde in U.S. Oil and Gas Production Regions

We analyzed observational and model data to study the sources of formaldehyde over oil and gas production regions and to investigate how these observations may be used to constrain oil and gas VOC emissions. The analysis of aircraft and satellite data consistently found that formaldehyde over oil and gas production regions during spring and summer is mostly formed by the photooxidation of precursor VOCs. Formaldehyde columns over the Permian basin, one of the largest oil and gas producing regions in the United States, are correlated with production locations. Formaldehyde simulations by the atmospheric chemistry and transport model WRF-Chem, which included oil and gas NOx and VOC emissions from the fuel-based oil and gas inventory, were in very good agreement with TROPOMI satellite measurements. Sensitivity studies illustrated that VOCs released from oil and gas activities are important precursors to formaldehyde, but other sources of VOCs contribute as well, and that the formation of secondary formaldehyde is highly sensitive to NOx. We also investigated the ability of the chemical mechanism used in WRF-Chem to represent formaldehyde formation from oil and gas hydrocarbons by comparing against the Master Chemical Mechanism. Further, our work provides estimates of primary formaldehyde emissions from oil and gas production activities, with per basin averages ranging from 0.07 kg h -1 to 2.2 kg h -1 in 2018. A separate estimate for natural gas flaring found that flaring emissions could contribute 5% to 12% to the total primary formaldehyde emissions for the Permian basin in 2018.

SAF↗