Posted on 12/09/2007 7:05:16 AM PST by saganite
We need to be producing oil every where someone is willing to risk their money to get it.
I'd love for it to be in my back yard.
Because they don't really care about the environment. They use it as the pretense of caring about the environment. They only care about destroying capitalism and Republicans let them get by with it.
You can still see the remains of that drilling when you fly over West Texas.
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There’s still an active derrick at Hollywood High in L.A. although I think they have it disguised as a clock tower or some such thing ,, it pays for all their school trips , busses for football away games and such.
The Bakken is one of the worst rock (formations) on the planet," Helms said." [Emphasis added by RWR]
Not certain what your point is. From what I know, the Bakken is one of those areas where enhance recovery techniques may make a big positive difference. I hope it does and a 2000 barrel initial rate of production and an ultimate recoverable of 700,000 barrels is quite impressive. Please note however, that the action seems to be mostly in one small area. Maybe it contains a sand lens, or is otherwise atypical. Maybe the whole state of North Dakota is as prospective. My guess [and it is only a guess] is that there are sweet spots and this is one of them.
I also know, that if you are relying on information in this article to portray this long recognized formation as a silver bullet, you need to reread the article.
I am very curious why this isn't more of a gas play as shales have a notorious lack of permeability which makes natural gas production while difficult, but more frequently feasible.
NO.
The article is full of misconceptions, the oil is not in the shale, but came from there. It is only produced from the shale economically when the shale is severely farctured, usually it is produced from layers which are relatively conventional tight but porous reservoirs near the shale.
Other misconceptions:
The oil is dark green, not honey colored, at least in the 50 wells I have worked. The foam is orange or light green, depending on where you are.
You don't sell your mineral rights if you want royalties, you lease them, otherwise the new owner gets the royalties. You got paid for the mineral rights.
If you wait to get to the formation to turn to hroizontal you will end up about 410 feet too low, and the chances of you getting enough wellbore in zone to pay for the well that way are about zip. You have to anticipate the depth of the formation within a few tens of feet and generally make corrections along the way to get in and stay in the producing strata. The rock layers do not stay level, either, but are folded as a rule, so you have to stay with the formation's structural changes to stay in it as well as you go laterally.
Just one of thousands. With the world awash in oil we don't need to rely on a silver bullet, we've got a case full of boxes full of them.
The Barnett shale in Texas is primarily a gas play and is as relatively large in that respect as the Bakken is in oil production. Additionally, since this is relatively new technology oil companies are looking at known formations they have passed on previously because they didn’t have the technology to exploit it. I believe the article states the Bakken was well known for decades but couldn’t be exploited. That’s true in many places.
The effort involved makes Barnett Shale wells very expensive wells.
The issue I see with the Bakken is that unless you are in sweet spot [lots of communicated fracturing or maybe clean sandy streaks], the oil just isn’t going to flow to the well bore anywhere near as readily as would natural gas.
There is a fair amount of gas associated with the oil, but the oil is the thing people are after. Gas produced from the Bakken tends to have a fairly high proportion of Propane, Butane, and other 'heavies' relative to Methane.
The rocks are Mississippian in age, older than the usual Cretaceous gas play.
Depending on where you are, there is an upper shale of up to roughly 30 feet in thickness, the Middle Bakken (carbonates with some sand/silt stringers), and depending on where you are, a lower shale.
Both shales are black to very dark brown and very carbonaceous, except where they are remanants just before pinch out. While they will not fluoresce under a black light, when bathed in solvent in a spot dish the presence of oil is obvious by the cut--oil fluorescing as it is washed out of the rock.
At no place does the Bakken actually outcrop: the entire formation is only known from subsurface data, cores and drill cuttings.
As a result, the entire kerogen load of the source rocks (the shales) is trapped in the subsurface, and while some of this remains bound in the shales, oil and gas have migrated to tight reservoirs in the Middle Bakken, the lower Lodgepole, and oil shows have been noted down to the sand/silt stringers in the top of the Three Forks Formation (which underlies the Bakken) especially where the lower shale is present.
The Shale was drilled in the 80s horizontally, but, for the most part, only those wells which intersected extensive fractures (and, perhaps--a theory of mine I have not had time to verify) or went out of the shale into reservoir in the adjacent Middle Bakken reached payout.
Current efforts concentrate on porous rock in the Middle Bakken.
Vertical Bakken production has existed for decades, both in the sand interval known as the Sannish (most notably southeast of Newtown, ND) and along the Nesson Anticline and in the area of the Billings nose, although wells considered to be economical were realtively uncommon.
As the Williston Basin contains a number of 'stacked' pay formations, the Bakken may have been produced in some of these wells as a secondary target prior to P&A after producing a deeper zone such as the Duperow or Red River Formations.
The wells in the Parshall play have some of the best IPs so far on the North Dakota side, most start out at 1/4 of that or less (before the frac job).
Still, a 300-500 BOPD IP of 35 to 42 API gravity is nothing to sneeze at, and at today's prices offers a reasonable ROI.
Prior to having problems with pipeline capacity, the Bakken oil was among the highest midcontinent oils in price, about the same as WTI.
Recovery rates may be understated in the case of the Middle Bakken, some operators have estimated 10% or better in Montana wells, and development of better fraccing/production techniques is ongoing and may show significant improvements.
There is a tendency to be somewhat cautious and not hype what a formation will do, and if anything, to understate it to prevent a situation in which operators are disappointed, especially if you are the head of a State Agency.
No one wants a reputation for BS in an industry where the numbers will tell the story later.
Yep.
The Bakken wells are expensive all right but with the price of oil being what it is they are feasible for now. Total production from the entire formation is somewhere around 200-400,000 barrels a day near as I can tell, so it’s not earth shattering. The biggest drawback to increased production there right now is not the difficulty in extracting the oil but the lack of pipeline and refinery assets.
When did this attitude start? I am up to page 150 in 'The Prize' where they are trying to convince the Royal British Navy to convert to oil but don't yet have a secure source and people are lining up ten deep to plunk down their life savings on some oil speculation here or there and personality is everything because nobody knows anything.
Granted the Ecowhacko lobby is insane, but whare is the beef in draining oil from a formation over a six square mile area from one production pad with three wells on it?
That, and the fact that this is one place where cries of environmental devastation against the oil industry generally won't find any traction. The farmers who have their mineral rights welcome exploration as a rule, and the industry here isn't making any messes.
I know the protesters will ballyhoo even when things are being done right, but they will have to whine elsewhere.
Even the East side of the state (with no oil or coal) manages to benefit from the energy industry over on the west side, as the state share of royalties funds tax breaks for them.
Let them paddle out to the deewater G.O.M. units for a protest, please!
(September might be a good month...)
If the estimates of over 400 billion barrels of oil are correct and operators can actually achieve 10% or better recovery rates this will eventually rival Alaska in terms of total production.
If you are the head of a State agency, looking at economic development over the long run, you want to keep your credibility.
I know Mr. Helms from working with him in the past, and he is a straight shooter.
That reputation is worth more than all the 'fast bucks' in the state coffers ever would be.
If you are someone unscrupulous somewhere trying to sell a shaky prospect, different rules may apply--just as I have seen with the abiotic oil crowd.
Keep in mind, though, this (The Bakken) was once considered a "shaky prospect".
Whenever there is a boom, someone, somewhere, will be trying to produce the investors rather than the commodity, others will be picking longshots which have a chance of paying off or are unproven concepts.
Many of us who have been in the industry for some time have a couple of those (longshots or unproven concepts) tucked away, but have not been moved to seek investors in them.
The only really good salesman I know once said, "Customers are like sheep. You can take the wool off 'em every now and then, and if you do it right, they will be happy to have the haircut. But you can only skin 'em once."
For those of us who depend on our professional reputations, selling those ideas would only come with the caveat that it might not work at all and every invested dime might be lost. Frankly, that is not what people want to hear.
Not long ago, the state was lowballing the estimate at 200 million barrels in place, and until the USGS weigns in, the numbers remain specualtive, from 200 to 500 billion barrels. Either way, if this keeps going, I might get to retire yet. (8^D)
Did you ever break that Lincoln out of storage for the wife to drive?
The '79 Town Car is 'out to pasture'... for parts--and I have a line on another with a 460. (The one retired one had a danged 400 modified--miserable engine, anyway).
She has a little Mercury for running errands in town, but likes the big car on the highway, where it does best.
She says "They can have my Lincoln when they pry my cold dead hands from the steering wheel, and not until."
The '77 LTD is in storage, too (also a 460).
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