Posted on 02/10/2011 8:45:33 AM PST by NRG1973
Oil-drilling activity in the U.S. has accelerated to a pace not seen in a generation as energy companies, oilfield contractors and landowners rush to exploit newly profitable sources of crude.
The number of rigs aiming for oil in the U.S. is the highest since at least 1987, according to Baker Hughes Inc. The 818 rigs tallied by the oilfield-service company last week are nearly double last year's count and about 10 times the number that were drilling for oil in the late 1990s.
While the drilling surge is unlikely to yield enough crude to alter the global oil-supply picture, analysts say the new activity, centered on so-called unconventional reservoirs, could greatly boost domestic oil production and help offset declining output in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
These reservoirs, trapped in tight shale-rock formations, were deemed too hard to crack a decade ago. But in the past two years, breakthroughs in drilling technology, combined with the resilience of high oil prices, have led companies like Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK - News) and Petrohawk Energy Corp. (NYSE: HK - News) to switch rigs formerly devoted to drilling for natural gas to emerging oilfields like the Eagle Ford shale formation, which stretches from the outskirts of Houston and San Antonio, Texas, south into Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
A lot of future billionaires. Ahead of the coming oil crisis.
Declining only because Obama, Dems in Congress, and the enviroweenies have shut down new drilling in these areas.
I’m not sure I beleive this.
How about someone saying, “The hell with the world supply of oil, what matters to the United States of America should be the availability of oil to the United States of America”?
The biggest problem the USA has had and still has is the GOVERNMENT of the USA.
I’m not sure I beleive this.
Same here.
There have been posts on this here for years. Google Bakken. That’s the formation in ND that started it all. The new technology developed here is revolutionizing the oil patch.
smokin’ joe ping
One of my customers was contacted last month regarding the drilling rites his father bought in ND 35 years ago. They want to do exporitory drilling on his area.
They were not deemed “too hard to crack” a decade ago, nor at any time since the mid 1970s. They were deemed “unprofitable at under $50 a barrel” which is not the same thing.
It’s time for the newly empowered GOP House of Reps to declare the restrictions on US oil exploration and drilling to be henceforth null and void. Open up the Alaskan fields and the Gulf of Mexico again! Can Congress put pressure upon Obama, or can Obama’s bureaucrats continue to act like dictators?
While we’re at it, let’s also allow more coal mining and natural gas exploration.
In northern Minnesota, our stupid new governor, Mark Dayton, needs to allow the mining of copper and nickel as well, and create some much needed jobs to the beleagered, jobless men up on the Iron range.
I am offended by the bullying that the environmentalists perpetrate upon the American people!!!!!! :>(
Obama Administration Blocking 103 Gulf Drilling Permits
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2668165/posts
Judge Holds Interior Dept. in Contempt Over Ban
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2667719/posts
It’s true. I have a (modest) interest in several wells, both in production and ready to drill, and the constant delays in getting rigs and service contractors to the sites is aggravating, for sure. BJ Services, Halliburton, Baker-Hughes; everyone is booked out months in advance.
Believe it.
Makers of industrial diamonds are at full capacity right now, supplying the drilling industry. The Rocky Mtn states are quietly poking a whole lot of holes in the ground and tapping into quite a bit of energy.
without adding more refineries, what good is more drilling?
Not necessarily saying this is a bit of a stretch, but from all I’ve seen Chesapeak and other shalers are drilling for gas not oil. Not to say can’t find one with the other, it just hasn’t been talked up much.
Add me to the “not so sure” column.
I believe this. The company I work for makes parts for a company that makes rigging equipment for the oil industry, and they’ve been ordering from us at an unprecedented rate in the last couple of months.
Good for him!!!!
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