SOLAR OIL DRILLING

Strange bedfellows: Solar power meets oil drilling

Javier E. David, 14 Sept. 2014 (CNBC)

“…GlassPoint Solar last week landed a $53 million investment from Royal Dutch Shell and the sovereign investment fund of Oman for its enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology. In a twist of irony, GlassPont's technology runs on solar power, which produces steam to help pump more fossil fuel from conventional crude plays...GlassPoint has been using this technique in Oman since 2012, and it helped the firm score more than double its initial funding. Given the age of its oil fields, Oman relies on EOR—a complex process that extracts more oil than traditional drilling—to boost production…Enhanced recovery is characterized by flooding wells with carbon dioxide, with major producers like Occidental Petroleum using the process more than 70 percent of the time. Natural gas is used to turn water into high pressure steam, which helps drillers access heavy oil…[T]he increasing use of EOR techniques [is] a hallmark of a world where the largest oil fields [are approaching depletion]…Companies spend at least $5 billion annually on the process…and the need for methods to expand the efficiency of wells is particularly acute in places like Oman and Russia where oil fields are getting long in the tooth…Using solar rather than carbon-burning technology makes the process easier on the environment, and conserves natural gas, experts say…” click here for more

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