Production and reserves in the USA have grown substantially in recent years due to the availability of new technologies for exploiting unconventional reservoirs. Starting about 10 years ago, the combination of horizontal drilling and multistage slickwater fracturing unlocked the potential of the Barnett Shale and then other gas shales around North America. The adoption of horizontal drilling was such that in March 2009, the USA horizontal rig count overtook the vertical rig count for the first time. Additionally, as a result of the effectiveness of these drilling and completion techniques, gas prices have fallen and appear to have stabilised for an extended period. However, the activity in the USA has not declined; it has just shifted to unconventional oil reservoirs such as the Bakken formation in the Williston Basin. In fact, for the first time in many years the number of rigs drilling for oil in the USA now exceeds the number of rigs drilling for gas.
The extensive infrastructure and business friendly climate of the USA enabled this drilling boom to occur. This wave of activity has induced a technology race in the development of downhole tools for unconventional fracturing and well completion. To that point, these developments have been changing at a much faster pace than conventional downhole equipment due to:
The willingness of operators to field trial new equipment.The lower cost environment and limited time required to drill a new well.The highly competitive nature of the unconventional market with the universal desire to increase initial production and estimated ultimate recovery of wells renowned for steep decline curves.While there has been slightly slower adoption within the international oil and gas market, this is expected to change as the technologies developed in the unconventional reservoirs of the USA are exported to other parts of the world.
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