Analysis: Harsh Dakota winters bring new risk to Bakken oil markets, peak 475,000 bpd in October

Reuters via Calgary Herald ^ | November 15, 2011 | Slam Gebrekidan

[St. Louis Conservative]

Drilling engineers should be prepared for extreme cold. The climate of North Dakota was not unknown. We’ve been drilling and pumping oil in the frigid wilderness of northern Alaska and Prudhoe Bay for 40 years without major issues.

[Izzy Dunne]

it reverses what had been an inexorable decline

Somebody 'splain to this writer what "inexorable" means.

[thackney]

Agreed, I’ve worked on the Alaskan North Slope.

[ConservativeDude]

thanks for your posts, as always

[thackney]

[heiss]

shouldn’t NPR make documentary about the positive effect of global warming here?

[verity]

Slam Gebrekidan....must be a pen name. lol

[Vigilanteman]

Back when I lived in North Dakota, we always had a saying that ‘40 below was occasionally necessary to keep the riffraff out.’

[lacrew]

Ditto - I’m sure winter has some impact, but good grief, the author seems to have forgotten Alaska existed.

[PJ-Comix]

I recently located a really good job for my brother in law in the the oil industry as a welder in North Dakota. The pay was great but, being as how he lives in Florida, he decided to wait on the job until next Spring. Going from balmy Florida to the arctic blasts of North Dakota can be brutal.

[US_MilitaryRules]

KOG is one of the companies doing business there.

[Will88]

Not sure this is much of a story. As has been said we pump oil in Alaska, and the Russians also pump oil in Siberia.

[thackney]

He may want to look at South Texas for the winter work.

Eagle Ford Shale is doing the same type of work and struggling to find enough people.

[thackney]

[Recon Dad]

There’s a series running on the Science Channel called “Cold Diggers”, it was on yesterday again. They follow MGM Energy and Nabors Drilling as they drill in the Yukon, well above the Artic Circle and Northern Alberta. It’s a 4 or 5 part series.

If you can drill there as they say. ND ain’t sh%t.

[spokeshave]

I’m sure winter has some impact, but good grief, the author seems to have forgotten Alaska existed.

I don't think they have to use fracking in Alaska.

With oil shale the water/acetic acid/sand/glass beads etc have to be trucked in to the well head....and when the well is put in production a lot of it comes back out, which is then trucked back to re-cycling facility.

[Recon Dad]

Awesome map!

[wild74]

Better bring a trailer and find a place to hook up also. Finding a place to hook up in the Eagle Ford play is hard to do. Heard that landowners are selling RV hookups for a price.

[Recon Dad]

.....obviously an unrequited “peak oil” fan.