Evolution of Unconventional Hydrocarbons: Past, Present, Future and Environmental FootPrint
Nikolaos C. Kokkinos, D. C. Nkagbu, D. I. Marmanis, Konstantinos Dermentzis, G Maliaris
Abstract
This research was to comprehensively examine the considerable impact of unconventional oil and gas in the oil and gas industry and review the components of accumulation, and integrated analysis of the global resource distribution, the past, present, future revolution, and environmental footprints. A PRISMA systematic review on scientific publications employed to examine unconventional oil and gas. All the literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and October 2021 and the published studies were systematically identified and categorized, respectively. USA is the highest in terms of the number of published articles from across various organization within different nations and accounts for 35% of the overall number of publications per countries studied, China (33%) comes second, and other regions constitute (32%). The regional distribution of recoverable unconventional hydrocarbons across the globe revealed that 23% of the recoverable resources are found primarily in North America, with the others accumulated in Russia (22%), Asia (21%), South America (17%), Africa (13%), and Europe (4%). European countries have had many discussions in attempt to prohibit unconventional oil and gas production activities, due to its possible environmental implications, mainly during fracturing techniques with chemical fluids.