As traditional, easy-to-access wells containing oil and gas have begun to dry up, the world’s producers have turned to less conventional locations to extract product. Offshore drillers have moved to deeper, more treacherous waters, while onshore drillers have attempted to tap into pools of oil and gas locked away in or trapped by low-permeability rock beds or coal beds. Access to these resources was previously limited by both cost and available technology, at least until a few decades ago. The development of technologies like steam assisted gravity drainage and hydraulic fracturing have made these unconventional sources more economically and technologically feasible.

Despite recent extraction successes, unconventional sources, however, have been largely at the center of the recent downturn in the oil and gas market. In December speculation was running rampant that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was intentionally ramping up production in the face of the market downturn in order to drive out players big and small in the shale producing regions of the U.S., who were flooding the market with new supply. News in April from the International Energy Agency revealed that OPEC ramped up production even further to 890 kb/d, fueling further speculation about the organization’s strategy.

However, a mid-April report from The Economist suggested that U.S. producers of unconventional oil and gas — especially those with “healthy balance-sheets” — were still holding their own despite reduced rig counts and lower prices. The magazine suggested producers’ ability to cut costs and improve production techniques through new technologies would keep many unconventional producers in business. This thought was echoed by market research company TechNavio, which released a new report in April suggesting a modest global increase in unconventional production, with advances in technology “reducing the risk and cost associated with the extraction of unconventional gas.” New research into oil and gas recovery fluids that decrease water use, reduce toxicity, and have extended longevity represent just one example of those technologies that strive to make unconventional production cleaner and more efficient.