Upon entering the oil and gas industry, one of the first things I kept hearing was conventional and unconventional oil. At first, I just thought this meant that this was the wrong way of drilling and the right way of drilling. For those of you who already know the difference, you know that I was clearly wrong. For those of you who don’t know the difference, sit tight and prepare to learn something new!
Conventional Oil & Gas
Conventional Oil and Gas is simply known as the traditional way to drill for raw natural gas, crude oil, and petroleum. So what do I mean by traditional? After a well is drilled, oil and gas is extracted by the natural pressure from the wells and pumping operations. Over time, the well may decrease in production. At this time, a conventional well will use an artificial lift or water and gas injections to help increase production.
After production gets to a point where the profits of oil are not enough to cover expenses, the well will usually stop production. If methods beyond an artificial lift or classic methods are used to increase production, then it would be classified at unconventional oil.
Unconventional Oil & Gas
Sometimes unconventional drilling methods are used due to increasing scarcity of retrieving oil and gas using conventional methods. Not always, is a pocket of oil and gas available to be retrieved by drilling and pressure naturally allowing the flow of gas. In this case, unconventional drilling comes in handy. Unconventional is a method that allows to drill down, drill horizontally, and fracking occurs. This allows oil and gas to be flowing from tight sands that we normally could not retrieve with conventional methods of drilling.
I personally think technology that allows us to retrieve oil and gas in areas that once were unreachable is just amazing. It is great to see how different methods have been developed over time allowing us to continue drilling for oil & gas allowing us to have an abundant amount.
