There’s a great interview with Daniel Yergin in today’s Wall Street Journal: Making Sense of the U.S. Oil Boom.
He puts the current boom into good perspective. During the last presidential election, we were talking about running out of oil. This time around, we are discussing how close the U.S. can get to energy independence.
He mentions the jobs impact:
The wizards of the oil industry can drill 4 or 6 or more wells on one pad. They’ve also developed self-propelled rigs.
So what, you ask?
That means less time to drill, far less surface disruption, less truck traffic, and more economical infrastructure.
It’s call pad drilling. Here is an illustration:
Photo: Chesapeake / Statoil. Used with permission.
There are 24 wells in that illustration, but the drilling was done from only 4 sites.
The Energy Information Administration discusses this in their article Pad drilling and rig mobility lead to more efficient drilling:
