US experiences in sustainable development of unconventional resources, appraisal phase approaches for addressing non-technical development risks

Abstract

The global development of unconventional gas resources is progressing at a remarkable pace, owing to technology advancements, supportive regulatory environments, and expectations of favourable long-term market conditions. In Australia, the sheer scale of the resource potential, the increase in political and public will towards CO₂ emissions reduction, and an immediate desire for greater local economic production suggests that exploration and production activity is likely to accelerate in the coming years. The unconventional gas sector, however, has been affected by negative publicity, with attention drawn to the potential environmental impacts and public burden associated with development practices—especially hydraulic fracturing. Stakeholder concerns regarding the significant water requirements, emissions footprint and infrastructure impacts across the development lifecycle represent significant challenges. This extended abstract focuses on the use of structured decision-making approaches used in the appraisal phase of unconventional gas developments in the US to identify and manage the technical and especially non-technical risks that impact a development’s cost, schedule and profitability across its lifecycle. An unconventional gas development from the US is presented, where a framework for integrating commercial, public and environmental concerns from corporate and external stakeholders into field concept development and selection has been successfully applied. The development, which faces resource and regulatory challenges related to water management, air emissions and local infrastructure impacts, employed fit-for-purpose decision-making tools that quantified non-technical development risks to inform the evaluation and selection of concepts that best met economic, corporate and stakeholder expectations.