TY - THES

T1 - Rig market demand analysis of Africa, Australia and the pacific region

AU - Grünauer, Felix

N1 - embargoed until 17-06-2019

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Over the past decade the importance of natural gas as an energy resource increased significantly with gas becoming an alternative to coal and oil. Not least because it causes less CO2 emissions but also due to the desire of some countries to refrain from nuclear energy, natural gas is gaining worldwide importance. Thanks to innovations of drilling techniques, economic production of shale gas became possible. The US shale gas boom and the consequential energy independence demonstrated the potential of that resource. Following the American example, more and more countries are showing their interest in exploiting shale gas resources. For rig manufacturing companies, this fact opens up new opportunities in rising markets, especially for those offering highly automated rigs. This master thesis has been carried out on behalf of a rig manufacturer and has its outcome in analyzing potential rig sales in Australia, Africa and the Pacific region. For that purpose the most promising shale gas fields for upcoming production in the next five years have been identified. Geological parameters of promising areas have been evaluated and simulated using historic production data of the US Marcellus Shale. To reduce uncertainty, estimated values have been have been simulated according to the Monte Carlo method resulting in three different scenarios. These outputs have been matched with two different studies, providing land rig forecasts, resulting in another Monte Carlo simulation generating sundry potential rig sales for the different regions for upcoming years. Due to the high number of basins in the analyzed area, a considerable amount of the promising shale gas formations are in a very immature stage of exploration and field development will not take place within the timeframe provided by the forecasts. Therefore the results focus on a small amount of formations in the analyzed area. High uncertainties about the start of economic production in other promising formations did not allow a reliable forecast so that only a geological description is provided. The outcome is the identification of potential marketing areas combined with a quantitative number of future rig selling possibilities.

AB - Over the past decade the importance of natural gas as an energy resource increased significantly with gas becoming an alternative to coal and oil. Not least because it causes less CO2 emissions but also due to the desire of some countries to refrain from nuclear energy, natural gas is gaining worldwide importance. Thanks to innovations of drilling techniques, economic production of shale gas became possible. The US shale gas boom and the consequential energy independence demonstrated the potential of that resource. Following the American example, more and more countries are showing their interest in exploiting shale gas resources. For rig manufacturing companies, this fact opens up new opportunities in rising markets, especially for those offering highly automated rigs. This master thesis has been carried out on behalf of a rig manufacturer and has its outcome in analyzing potential rig sales in Australia, Africa and the Pacific region. For that purpose the most promising shale gas fields for upcoming production in the next five years have been identified. Geological parameters of promising areas have been evaluated and simulated using historic production data of the US Marcellus Shale. To reduce uncertainty, estimated values have been have been simulated according to the Monte Carlo method resulting in three different scenarios. These outputs have been matched with two different studies, providing land rig forecasts, resulting in another Monte Carlo simulation generating sundry potential rig sales for the different regions for upcoming years. Due to the high number of basins in the analyzed area, a considerable amount of the promising shale gas formations are in a very immature stage of exploration and field development will not take place within the timeframe provided by the forecasts. Therefore the results focus on a small amount of formations in the analyzed area. High uncertainties about the start of economic production in other promising formations did not allow a reliable forecast so that only a geological description is provided. The outcome is the identification of potential marketing areas combined with a quantitative number of future rig selling possibilities.

KW - Bedarfsanalyse

KW - Tiefbohranlagen

KW - Rig market

KW - demand analysis

M3 - Master's Thesis

ER -