Current Technologies and Prospects of High-Efficiency Shale Gas Development

Dear Colleagues,

Shale gas is a type of natural gas which is exploited from shale rocks. Shale gas is an unconventional resource, distinguished from oil and coal. With the significant decrease in conventional resource production, the role of shale gas has gradually been strengthened. The increase in the shale gas proportion in primary energy is particularly important to achieve low-carbon transformation and development. In many different fields, shale gas is expected to replace conventional resources to become the main source of energy. Scientists and engineers worldwide are devoting their efforts to carrying out the mass exploitation of shale gas.

Up to now, a large number of diverse technologies have been proposed and presented. Some advanced technologies could effectively increase the production of shale gas. Technologies usually employed are horizontal well drilling technology, cementing technology, and fracturing technology. In the exploitation process, horizontal well drilling technology is particularly common, which has wide application prospects. It includes underbalanced drilling technology, rotary steerable drilling technology, managed pressure drilling technology, logging while drilling technology, and measurement while drilling technology. For cementing technology, the application basis is the stable chemical structure of shale gas. The core of the technology is cement slurry systems, which include foamed cement, acid-soluble cement, foamed acid-soluble cement, and volcanic ash and H level cement. The development of fracturing technology has a close relationship with ultra-low permeability and low porosity. To ensure the efficient production of shale gas, multistage large-scale hydraulic fracturing is needed. This technology includes foamed fracturing, multistage fracturing, clean water fracturing, hydraulic jet fracturing, refracturing, and synchronous fracturing. Different technologies have distinct features and application scopes. In different regions, distributions of shale gas have various characteristics. New technologies are needed to achieve the efficient exploitation of shale gas, such as the employment of supercritical carbon dioxide.

This Special Issue has the aim of collecting contributions on current technologies and prospects of high-efficiency shale gas development. Original contributions including experimental, numerical simulation, and theoretical analysis results are expected. Studies of interest to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Applications of current technologies in the exploitation of shale gas;
• Systematic review on the current technologies of shale gas exploitation;
• Comparisons of current technologies;
• Optimal design of current technologies;
• Presentation of new advanced technologies;
• Problems in the exploitation of shale gas;
• Future prospects in the exploitation of shale gas.

Dr. Xiaochuan Wang
Dr. Xiangdong Han
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• shale gas
• high-efficiency exploitation
• current technology
• new advanced technology
• future prospect