Troubles redux: Brexit would put the Good Friday Agreement in jeopardy

A Brexit – which is very unlikely to reflect majority opinion in Northern Ireland – could profoundly destabilise the the Good Friday Agreement, argues Brendan Donnelly. It would necessarily re-establish the political border with Ireland, cut off EU funds and stoke sectarian tensions kept relatively dormant since the peace accord

No good choices for the British government in the Brexit negotiations

David Davis has been criticised in some quarters for spending only two hours in Brussels this week negotiating with Michel Barnier before returning hurriedly to London. This criticism is misplaced, writes Brendan Donnelly. As Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Davis needs to exercise the closest possible control on all the negotiations relating to Brexit. Most of these negotiations are currently taking place in London, within the government of which Davis is a member

The tragicomedy of Brexit needs resolution by another referendum

In recent weeks, there has been widespread discussion of the possibility of a new referendum later in the year to endorse or reject the terms negotiated by Theresa May and her government for British withdrawal from the European Union. Brendan Donnelly (Federal Trust) asks whether this time around an EU referendum would reflect reality

The internal contradictions of the Brexit project are unbridgeable

In his recent testimony to the House of Lords, Sir Ivan Rogers criticised as premature and ill-prepared the Prime Minister's triggering last March of Article 50. Brendan Donnelly argues that this is unfair to Theresa May. No different date for the beginning of the Brexit negotiations could or would have rendered them any less painful for the British participants. And no amount of extra preparation on the British side could or would have resolved the numerous internal contradictions of the Brexit project

Ever Closer Union — neither a goal nor an aspiration, but a process

“Ever Closer Union” is frequently seen as an almost metaphysical aspiration with little political substance; or alternatively as a categorical imperative for the creation a “European Super-State”. Brendan Donnelly, who took part in the LSE Commission on the Future of Britain in Europe on the matter, writes that instead the phrase is best thought of as neither a cloudy aspiration, nor a detailed commitment, but rather a factual description of a process enshrined in the European Treaties. This process entails incremental sharing of national sovereignties between the member states, monitored and reinforced by independent EU institutions

Is Labour's new Brexit stance a step in the right direction?

The recent article by Keir Starmer, Labour spokesman on Brexit, setting out the Party's commitment to continued British membership of the EU single market and the customs union for a transitional period post-Brexit is a welcome and significant development in the European debate. Brendan Donnelly (Federal Trust) argues that Labour is making a move it in the right direction, but concerns about Labour's long-term ..

A chaotic Brexit is still a possibility

The terms of the political debate about Brexit in the aftermath of the General Election are gradually becoming clearer. Since the Brexit project is an essentially irrational one, its discussion will always tend towards paradox and conundrum. Nevertheless, the weeks since the General Election have clarified the choices with which the British government and other political actors are likely to find themselves confronted over the coming months. How they will react to these choices remains as much a matter of speculation as ever. A chaotic Brexit remains a distinct possibility, writes Brendan Donnelly

Brexit is a blank sheet of paper that can never be filled in

The frenzied negotiations to conclude the first phase of Brexit negotiations have usefully clarified the real choices faced by the British government in the second phase. The ambiguous and variously defined terms “soft” and “hard” Brexit have outlived their usefulness. As it turns out, Brexit is a blank sheet of paper that can never be filled in, writes Brendan Donnelly (Federal Trust)

The UK will never be ready for Brexit

Brexit had been falsely presented in 2016 as either economically positive or at worst economically neutral. Recent events show that today the government is confronted with a conundrum – it wishes to avoid the economic catastrophe of a “no-deal” Brexit while insisting publicly that a “no-deal” Brexit is perfectly manageable. In fact, all evidence proves that the UK will never be ready for Brexit, warns Brendan Donnelly (Federal Trust)

Measurement of Hysteretic Shale Capillary Pressure – Saturation Relationships using a Water Activity Meter

Capillary pressure is the pressure difference across the interface of two immiscible fluids within a porous medium due to the interfacial tension between fluids and is related to both the properties of the fluids and the porous medium. Capillary pressure within a porous medium will change depending upon its degree of saturation. Understanding the relationship between capillary pressure and saturation for a rock allows for the modeling of multi-phase flow. Many traditional methods of measuring capillary pressure are unsuitable for the characterization of shale due to their inability to measure the high capillary pressures found within the small pores. Furthermore, the mercury injection method used to determine shale pore-size distribution may be problematic due to both compression and contamination of the sample, as well as difficulty in converting the mercury capillary pressure to reservoir fluid capillary pressure. A possible alternative to the mercury injection method is the water activity meter which has been utilized extensively in the soil sciences for measuring capillary pressure. However, its application to lithified material has been limited. This study used a water activity meter to collect capillary pressure measurements (ranging from 2-200 MPa) at several saturation levels (ranging from 10-100%) for seven types of oil and gas producing shale. Nonlinear regression was used to fit the capillary pressure-saturation data for each shale type to the Brooks and Corey model which describes the relationship between capillary pressure and saturation using four parameters. Six of the seven shale types investigated were successfully parameterized indicating that the water activity meter may be a viable method for characterizing the capillary pressure-saturation relationship of shale for inclusion in numerical reservoir models. There were no significant differences between the wetting and drying Brooks and Corey parameters for the different shales, indicating that hysteresis was not a major factor. As expected, the different shale types had significantly different Brooks and Corey parameters for a given drying/ wetting regime. Bulk density, matrix density, and porosity measurements were also made on each shale type. These properties were correlated with total organic carbon content and were also statistically different between the examined shale types