#6 Energy Exploration Technology

The technologies like hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, and subsea exploration will expand the world’s supply of fossil fuels through oil shale.

Oil shale, also known as kerogen shale, which is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced. Shale oil is a substitute for conventional crude oil; however, extracting shale oil from oil shale is more costly than the production of conventional crude oil both financially and in terms of its environmental impact.

Some of the processes like fracking, which involves injecting water, sand, and chemicals into the ground to free up shale energy and horizontal drilling that allows oil and gas companies to access previously unobtainable parts of rock formations are beginning to take form.

The shale revolution has only just begun with US leading the way in shale extraction, but it only possesses 13 percent of recoverable shale gas worldwide, so there should start to be more rapid global expansion. Subsea processing equipment has the potential to be a $100 billion per annum market by the next decade. Offshore oil and gas production already accounts for 45 percent of incremental supply.

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