WellDog and Shell Collaborate to Commercialize Novel Shale Gas Testing Service

October 7, 2014 (Laramie, Wyo) – WellDog announced  today that it has collaborated with Shell International Exploration & Production, Inc. (‘Shell’) over the past eighteen months to develop a new technical service for locating natural gas and natural gas liquids in shale formations.

This announcement follows a laboratory and field development program undertaken by the two companies, leveraging WellDog’s patented downhole Raman spectroscopy technology and Shell’s geochemical and petrophysical experience in shale gas evaluation.

The new service is directed at identifying the locations where natural gas and natural gas liquids occur in shale formations, allowing producers to focus development efforts, reduce drilling costs, optimize production, and reduce the number of hydraulic fracturing stages and associated water usage.

Shell is now leading beta trials of the technical service that is being developed from the program.

What Others Are Saying

Industry Opportunities & Implications

WellDog’s unique next generation downhole technology directly measures chemicals at specific depths using carefully selected lasers and sophisticated detectors.

It holds the potential to locate pay zones and generate detailed hydrocarbon distributions, distinguishing oil and condensate versus gas, with such precision that it could help reduce the need for fracking industry-wide by as much as half.

If perfected and adopted, domestically and internationally WellDog could offer high-value production optimization leading to per barrel cost savings as well as reduced environmental and social impacts.

Sandy Hunter, key member of the management buy-out team that led to a US$200 million public listing and US$3 billion sale of Expro to Goldman Sachs subsidiary Candover; distinguished First Reserve-backed serial oil and gas entrepreneur; currently partner at Ambrose Resources LLC, which operates and develops shale oil fields in Texas and Louisiana.  Sandy said smarter and fewer wells are what shale operators want, and WellDog’s technology will help operators enhance performance and operational efficiency in shale development.

“The Estimated Ultimate Recovery is key – and WellDog can help address the many and costly challenges of shale operators to enhance well performance and efficiency,” Hunter said.

Pete Christian, formerly operations and engineering manager at Halliburton and Shell, as well as vice president of drilling pioneer Schramm Inc.  Pete said, “WellDog’s new technology potentially takes production optimization to a new level.”

“The trend in the design and completion of well design and completion is to reduce costs and maximize production of oil and gas.  While shale formations tend to be thick, they are not homogenous, WellDog’s new technology will potentially allow operators to drill, complete and stimulate new wells in the most productive layers of a shale formation.  Some of the benefits are reduced waste, smaller frac jobs (reduced water consumption), higher Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR) and lower project costs,” Christian said.

Professor Dan Buttry, expert in geochemical challenges related to energy and carbon sequestration; supported by US Navy, Air Force, Army, and Dept of Energy; chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University, the largest university in the US; Dan said the WellDog technology was proven to be “reliable and robust” in the case of coal bed methane and he expects the same in shales.

“The technology development is the result of a long path the company has taken from early applications in coal bed methane to the current application in shales.  In the case of the former applications, the technology was proven to be reliable and robust, especially including engineering solutions for a range of downhole conditions.  Based on success in the coal bed methane arena and including some recent developments that allow differentiation of various types of hydrocarbons from each other, it appears ready for application in shales.  Reliability and accuracy have been demonstrated in coal bed methane applications.  I suspect similar demonstration will occur in shales,” Buttry added.

Ralph Schofield, COO of Platinum Energy Resources, said, “The challenge in shale gas is to locate and develop the zones in the shale trend which yield the best economic returns.  WellDog’s new technology provides operators with a new “step-change” tool to differentiate hydrocarbon content and manage the cost of field developments. ”

Mark Northam, Director of the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming and formerly scientist and manager at Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil and Mobil, said, “It is great to see a company with significant international potential returning to their Wyoming roots.”

“They have developed quite a valuable suite of technologies for downhole monitoring of gas composition and pressures that serve to reduce costs of production and help optimize production rates. Having them increase their presence in Laramie will be good for the local economy, and we could see development of important synergies between WellDog and UW through student internships and placement, and collaboration with faculty and research professionals,” Northam said.