World demand for oil will continue to grow. Yet production levels from most conventional petroleum resources, including the continental U.S. and Alaska, are declining. Together, increased demand and declining production will necessitate adding 65 million barrels of new daily oil production capacity by 2020. Meeting this challenge, nearly equivalent to replicating the entire current world oil infrastructure by that time will require new production from unconventional oil resources.

Worldwide, there is an estimated six trillion barrels of unconventional oil (e.g., oil shale and tar sands) available for recovery. In the U.S. alone, existing unconventional resources (primarily oil shale) could meet hundreds of years of national oil consumption at current levels. Development of these resources has not previously been feasible due to economic, technical or environmental considerations. In addition, the U.S has vast coal resources that represent another large GFC opportunity for in-situ coal gasification; the produced syn-gas would be utilized in coal-to-liquids applications (Fischer-Tropsch technology), as fuel for power generation or feedstock for chemcials production.

RECOVERY OF THESE RESERVES PRESENTS AN IMMENSE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Many secondary and tertiary oil recovery technologies have been used to produce oil from unconventional resources. Many of these techniques depend on geothermics—applying heat to the ground. Geothermic techniques that have been tried in the past include steam flooding, fire flooding, electrical resistance electrodes and downhole burners.

All of these techniques have been generally successful in establishing and confirming the scientific proposition underlying geothermics: heat does in fact produce oil from unconventional resources. However, the economics of these past applications have generally not supported a long-term viable business model. The greatest barrier to commercial success facing most of these historically proven geothermic techniques is the cost of energy required to heat the ground.

IN – SITU GEOTHERMIC HYDROCARBON RECOVERY

Geothermics—the application of heat to the ground—has a long history of application around the world. Originated in Sweden during World War II for the production of oil from oil shale, geothermics have since expanded to include applications for the removal of toxic wastes and production of a variety of fuels from heavy oil deposits, tar sands, and other resources.

IEP’s Geothermic Fuel Cells™

IEP’s new proprietary approach to the art of geothermics will revolutionize this field. In this concept, rather than a burner or electric heater, a high-temperature fuel cell stack is placed within the formation to heat the ground – thus the term “Geothermic Fuel Cells”.

As the ground is heated, hydrocarbon liquids and gases are released from the resource into neighboring collection wells. A portion of the gases are processed and returned to the fuel cell stack, with the remainder available for sale into the energy markets. Thus, after an initial warm up period (during which the cells are fueled with an external source of natural gas), the GFC process becomes self-fueling from gases liberated by its own waste heat. This self-fueling system, in steady-state operation, produces oil, electricity and surplus natural gases. The result is a geothermic heater that is designed to produce a Net Energy Ratio (NER) of approximately 7.0 (i.e., 7 units of energy produced for every unit used). The net energy ratio of GFCs will increase to approximatley 18.0 when primary recovery is combined with residual char gasification and resulting synthesis gas.

Raising the temperature of the formation increases fluid pressures in the heated zone by 100 to 200 pounds per square inch over and above the native hydrostatic pressure. This pressure is often sufficient to fracture otherwise impermeable formations like oil shale. Alternatively, the formation can be pre-fractured to enhance the flow of hydrocarbons and accelerate communication between the heating wells and the production wells.