Posted on 04/28/2013 6:02:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
SWEETWATER — About a year ago, talk began circulating in this West Texas town about a huge oil-producing formation called the Cline Shale, east of the traditional drilling areas around Midland.
Then the oilmen and their rigs arrived. Now homes and hotels are sprouting, “help wanted” signs have multiplied, and a major drilling company has cleared land to build an office and equipment yard.
“It is coming, and it is big,” said Greg Wortham, the mayor of Sweetwater, who also serves as executive director of the Cline Shale Alliance, a new economic development group.
The Cline Shale, thousands of feet underground in a roughly 10-county swath, is just one of many little-tapped shale formations in Texas and across the nation, geologists say. That means the potential for oil and gas discoveries is theoretically huge, and the reason is technology. The rock-breaking process known as hydraulic fracturing, coupled with the ability to drill horizontally underground, has allowed drillers to retrieve oil and gas from previously inaccessible areas.
Many shales will be too expensive or too small to develop, especially if oil prices fall or environmental regulations tighten. But in Texas, which is already the top oil-producing state, bullishness about a new era is pervasive.....
(Excerpt) Read more at texastribune.org ...
Ah, Texas will be booming for years to come! There are so many new and old oil and gas places to explore and so many are also above 50% positive! We are so lucky in that regard as long as the Federal Government keep out.
Fracking is a new way of life!
I have just two things to say:
1. Drill baby drill.
2. Keep on fracking
Heh... Points taken!
Geologists saw shadows of these formations way back in the ‘20s. My dad was drilling Wink around that time, relatively shallow wells, and had a discussion with a geologists who speculated on what that might mean.He said he could be not sure than if he were using a willow switch, but that he would have bet money that deep, deep down there was oil to be had if it could be reached.
Roy Orbison's home town.
He was probably a kid when my Dad was there. Dad was a golfer and they had these little courses with the sand “greens,” Once you putted, they had this little rack to smooth the sand out.
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