Content Updated Friday, July 30 2010 > July Editor's Choice
Highlights
Coming August 2010
While oil prices and lucrative natural gas liquids markets are underpinning corporate bottom lines, natural gas prices are showing some resiliency, too. But say goodbye to the debate about the rapid decline rates in unconventional natural gas shale plays. Steep depletion curves are a given. The buzz is now about the repeatability of success in resource plays, the fast paybacks related to high initial production rates, building infrastructure and expanding natural gas markets in the long term. That is why all oil and gas industry eyes are on the August issue of
The American Oil & Gas Reporter!
July 2010 Cover Story
Advances In Nanotechnology Hold Huge Potential Promise In Upstream Applications
By Kari Johnson
Special Correspondent
Incredibly small by definition, nanotechnology is making big leaps in potential applications in the oil and gas industry.
“Nanoscale technology has moved from science fiction into really hard engineering,” says Wade Adams, director of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University.
Adams notes that companies are bringing to market commercial nanoscale products such as anti-corrosives and smart proppants, and nanotubes–once the province of research labs–now are manufactured on the tonnage scale in Belgium, Germany and Asia.
The evidence, according to Adams, is in the inclusion of nanoscience in a wide cross section of disciplines, including physics, chemistry and material science. Nanotechnology is also the focus of research projects at universities across the country. Oil and gas service companies also are getting involved, hiring nanotechnology specialists and supporting basic research. Moreover, Adams notes that new companies are bringing commercial nanoscale products to market.
