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Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Professor and Chair, Radisav Vidic, Advises On Increasing Opportunities in North Africa’s Unconventional Sector
Tunis – Tunisia: 30 September 2013 – With the North Africa Uncoventionals Seminar to be held for the first time in Tunisia, Radisav Vidic, Professor and Chair – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, offers advice on the development needed in the region to increase profitable investment opportunities in the Unconventionals Sector.
Speaking on the success of shale oil and gas development in North America, Mr. Vidic said: “Unconventional gas development has brought enormous economic benefit to the U.S. In addition to huge capital expenditures running over $87 billion, and 1.7 million jobs attributable to unconventional oil and gas development, this industry has helped bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Many companies are moving their manufacturing operations to the U.S. to take advantage of low energy prices caused by abundant supply of this resource in the U.S.”
Mr. Vidic believes that even though it might take time to replicate the same success that has been witnessed in USA – with regards to unconventional development – the achievements of the USA have definitely started a revolution through which profound changes in the world energy picture can be expected in the near future.
Evidence from studies presented by the International Energy Agency (IEA), forecast a growing role for natural gas in the world’s energy mix – with the natural gas share growing from 21 per cent in 2010, to 25 per cent in 2035. Africa is currently a small but growing part of the global gas picture, with North Africa countries representing majority of the oil and gas production.
Referring to the North African region, Mr. Vidic states that technical investments need to be made for successful shale gas exploration and production. Mr. Vidic points out that technical investments like: having infrastructure for transporting, processing, and storing natural gas; adequate control over environmental and health impact; as well as having a skilled workforce, are very important for the successful development of the industry.
Furthermore, it is also extremely important to have a clear regulatory picture – especially when it comes to the unconventional gas industry. According to Mr. Vidic, “Certainty in regulation is a key criterion that the industry needs, to fully assess the business potential and develop long-term plans for their involvement in a region. Another important aspect that needs to be considered is to have well-documented baseline environmental quality information in place, before developing the unconventional gas resource in the region.”
Mr. Vidic has discussed the environmental effect of these developments, especially water contamination, in one of his recent articles. Here, he states that even though, compared to conventional resources, natural gas helps reduce emissions of CO2, criteria pollutants, and mercury by the power sector, and has emerged as a clean energy source, these technologies are not free from environmental risks such as: gas migration, contaminated transport through induced and natural fractures, wastewater discharge, and accidental spills.
Among these, a common problem with well construction is a faulty seal that is placed to prevent gas migration into shallow groundwater – with an incidence rate of one to three per cent. Even though this figure is low, there is a substantial controversy whether the methane detected in private groundwater wells, in the area where drilling for unconventional gas is ongoing, has been caused by well drilling or natural processes. Not having pre-drilling baseline data makes it difficult to resolve this issue, because, in many areas sources of methane unrelated to hydraulic fracturing have existed for long.
Keeping this in mind, Mr. Vidic stresses the importance of assessing groundwater, surface water, and air quality, to be able to track potential changes and determine liability for environmental impacts from the gas industry.
Mr. Vidic will be speaking at the North Africa Uncoventionals Seminar taking place from 22 – 23 October 2013 in Tunis, Tunisia. On day one, he will be leading the discussion about how the industry must respond to environmental concerns of local communities and debunk existing myths. On day two, Mr. Vidic will be speaking about applying innovative techniques to reduce the amount of water used in unconventional operations.
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