Despite the abundance of hydrocarbon resources that have come from unconventional plays in recent years, there is still room for improvement when it comes to recovery rates.

Unconventional plays are producing in the high single digits, Core Laboratories CEO David Demshur said Dec. 2 during Cowen and Co.’s Ultimate Energy Conference. But by combining knowledge from reservoir descriptions, core analysis and fluid analysis as well as pressure volumes and temperatures of fluids—natural gas, crude oil and water—the datasets can lay the groundwork for finding the best way to boost production.

“Do we flood the field with miscible gas? Do we flood it with low-salinity water? Do we frack that field? Do we look at the rock mechanics of it to try to boost production?” said Demshur, running through the myriad of possibilities. “Our reservoir management group will look at entire fields and in some cases entire basins. We can’t alter the laws of physics and thermodynamics, but we can use the laws of physics and thermodynamics to alter the decline curve.”

During the conference, which was broadcast live via webcast, Demshur spoke about some of the company’s latest technology, including its new KODIAK enhanced perforating system, which uses a conventional perforation charge that is supplemented by solid rocket fuel.

“When we fire this system off through the casing out into the reservoir, a hot plasma gas will pierce the casing and draw up some 72 inches into the reservoir. That takes place at about 32,000 feet per second,” Demshur explained. “That plasma ignites this solid rocket fuel that burns at a slower rate. It generates a huge amount of gas that rushes into the perforating tunnel and performs many fractures. We reduce the formation breakdown pressure of this rock to be stimulated.”

The technology could lower the cost of frack jobs perhaps by as much as 20%, he said.

Using a project in the Bakken as an example, Demshur described how miscible light gas was injected at pressure and temperature, pushing more oil out of the tight reservoir rock. With the system, the recovery rate jumped from about 9% to 12%.

“That’s an enormous jump, but a lot more needs to be done with this technology,” he said. However, “Over the next several years, this is going to be a big driver for reservoir description and also increasing margins. Once we characterize that reservoir system we can go back in and complete and stimulate that zone.”

Another new technology called FracProfiler, a tracer, allows oil and gas companies to determine which stages— which for Core Labs have surpassed 40 for some wells—are flowing hydrocarbons and how much. Described as an organic compound that is soluble in oil and non-naturally occurring in nature, FlowProfiler evaluates both frack fluid cleanup and hydrocarbon production.

“When we see that in the production stream, if that flow profiler tracer is there, we know that stage is flowing and we can measure that quantitatively and tell them how it’s flowing,” Demshur said, later adding that it can also be used in vertical and pad drilling applications. “This turns out to be critical information. We thought drilling from a pad you would put them all in the same horizon to stimulate that reservoir. Not true. You have to stagger those vertically to drain that reservoir system. … We never knew the importance of that until we started looking at pad drilling. These reservoirs are far more compartmentalized than we ever thought.”

The technology—which is being used to help optimize well spacing, fracture stimulation size and horizontal targeting—has identified rock that is not being contacted by the hydraulic fracture system. In the example Demshur used, one of the five stages tested turned out to be not so good due to low porosity, low permeability and lots of clay matter.

“These diagnostics have identified that fracture systems are more contained vertically than previously expected,” Core Lab said on its website. “This means that horizontal wells need to be landed at various depths within the reservoir to ensure all layers are stimulated and produced.”

Production enhancement technologies, such as the FlowProfiler and KODIAK, helped this segment of Core Lab’s operations post its best quarter for third-quarter 2014 with more than $122 million of reported revenue—10% more than the previous quarter. Operating income for the quarter jumped 25% to $46.7 million in this area.

For the first time in the company’s history, reservoir description as a revenue generator has dropped below 50% due to faster growth rate of production enhancement, the CEO said.

Contact the author, Velda Addison, at vaddison@hartenergy.com.