Outrun Change

We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.

Archive for the tag “oil exploration”

01 May 2013
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Another Bakken’s worth of oil discovered. And it’s underneath the current Bakken. Oh, and what Peak Oil?

The USGS updated their estimate of the amount of oil that is undiscovered, technically recoverable in the Bakken field. Second paragraph of their press release says:

The USGS assessment found that the Bakken Formation has an estimated mean oil resource of 3.65 BBO and the Three Forks Formation has an estimated mean resource of 3.73 BBO, for a total of 7.38 BBO, with a range of 4.42 (95 percent chance) to 11.43 BBO (5 percent chance). This assessment of both formations represents a significant increase over the estimated mean resource of 3.65 billion barrels of undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation that was estimated in the 2008 assessment.

This means the mid-point (statistically correct phrase: mean) of the total oil that is technically recoverable with current technology is 7.4 billion barrels of oil. Their assessment is that the probability is 95% that there will be at least 4.4B and the probability is 5% that there could be as much as 11.4B.

Read more…

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24 Apr 2013

One data point for drilling costs in North Dakota

Bruce Oksol at Million Dollar Way provides one hard data point for costs to drill in Bakken for one producer in their particular locations with their specific techniques. May not apply to any other drillers, but a hard data point is useful.

Bakken Well Costs says: Read more…

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02 Mar 2013

Cost and time savings from pad drilling

I’m sure there is data around for how much pad drilling improves operations, but I’ve not seen a specific report like this.

The concept is that drilling multiple wells from one pad makes everything easier. The drillers don’t have to disassemble all the drilling equipment and can instead just side-step the rig. I discussed that in my post here. You can see a video of a rig side-stepping here.

Million Dollar Way has multiple posts over recent months talking about 6, 8, or 12 wells on one pad.

Eagle Ford Shale provides some hard numbers from one specific company:  Pioneer Natural Resource Expanding Use of Pad Drilling in 2013. Check this out:

Read more…

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08 Feb 2013

Have you noticed the new unit of measure for large oil fields is “Bakkens”?

I’ve noticed a fun trend. In discussions of undeveloped oil fields where fracking could open up huge production the potential size of the field is compared to Bakken. Thus, a new unit of measure – how many Bakkens are in the new field.

Three examples.

Read more…

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08 Feb 2013
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California has two-thirds of the shale oil reserves in the U.S.

The New York Times noticed the amount of shale reserves in California and wrote a major article:  Vast Oil Reserve May Now Be Within Reach, and Battle Heats Up.

The billion dollar question – do we in California have the wisdom to safely tap the economic growth, tens of thousands of jobs (if not a hundred thousand), and a couple billion of state tax revenue every year for the next couple of decades that shale oil could provide?

Two key comments from the article:

Read more…

Posted in Energy and tagged ,
10 Dec 2012

We don’t have to prosper from all that oil we found, world edition – Peak Oil #15

How much shale-gas is underground?  The Wall Street has a great graphic in their article Global Gas Push Stalls (behind paywall).

Here are a few of the largest estimated deposits, in trillions of cubic feet:

  • 862 – U.S.
  • 388 – Canada
  • 681 – Mexico
  • 1,275 – China
  • 774 – Argentina
  • 187 – Poland
  • 180 – France
  • 396 – Australia

There’s huge amounts of shale gas waiting to be tapped. Enough to power economic and manufacturing revival in many countries.  What we’ve seen in the U.S. market in terms of dropping prices (benefiting consumers a lot) and generating manufacturing growth could happen in Argentina, Poland, France, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria, and Libya.

But will it? Doesn’t look likely at the moment.

Read more…

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20 Nov 2012
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We don’t have to prosper, California edition

Update:  This is part 12 of my Peak Oil series.)

An article in Business Insider suggests There Is A Shale Oil Field Under Santa Barbara Four-Times Bigger Than The Bakken.

The article cites without linking (and I don’t want to spend the time finding the source) an EIA analysis:

According to the EIA, the Monterey Formation, which covers an enormous chunk of Southern California and terminates near Santa Barbara, has 15.4 billion barrels of recoverable crude — four times as much as the Bakken formation in North Dakota.

Read more…

Posted in Energy and tagged , ,
14 Jul 2012

Two more reasons for an oil and gas boom in the U.S. – free market capitalism and private property rights

The two biggest factors driving the tremendous expansion of shale oil and shale gas production are first, hydraulic fracturing and second, horizontal drilling.

There are two more major factors that have allowed this boom to take place, as pointed out by The Wall Street Journal in their editorial, The Shale Gas Secret (behind paywall).

Read more…

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06 Jul 2012

What portion of U.S. based drilling rigs are in Bakken and Eagle Ford?

25%.

One-fourth of the active rigs in the U.S. are located in those two areas.

There are 1,959 rigs working as of June 29, 2012. As I mentioned here, there are 215 rigs in Bakken and 278 in Eagle Ford. That means 11.0% of the U.S. rigs are in Bakken and 14.2% are in Eagle Ford. That totals to 25.2% of U.S. rigs in two plays.

I got to wondering what portion of the national drilling was in those two areas. A few minutes of research gave me plenty of info.

Read more…

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26 Jun 2012
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What if Bakken and Eagle Ford with new production of 1 million barrels a day are just the beginning?

What if new production of one million barrels of oil per day from just two fields is just the opening round of new production in the US?  What if that is just the start of worldwide growth in production?

I just took a first glance at Oil: The Next Revolution – The Unprecedented Upsurge of Oil Production Capacity by Leonardo Maugeri.

Consider this:

Read more…

Posted in Energy and tagged ,
20 Jun 2012

“Peak Oil” assumes we will never find a new field, so what just happened in Liard Basin can’t happen – peak oil #6

The Peak Oil concept is that production has peaked, production levels will soon decline in the U.S. & worldwide, and we will soon run out of oil.  At a fundamental level that assumes there isn’t any more oil than what we know about right now and that we can’t get to anything that we don’t know how to reach now.

Today I provide two illustrations of the fallacy of Peak Oil.

First, a new field means that tomorrow we can get to energy we didn’t know about yesterday.

Read more…

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11 Jun 2012

Mississippian Lime – another name to watch

This discussion sounds like it’s about Williston, North Dakota:

Oil rigs are springing up in farmers’ fields. “No vacancy” signs hang in the windows of local motels, and a steady stream of trucks barrel through Main Streets. Along the state’s southern border, the once-quiet farm towns are quickly transforming into boomtowns.

Hundreds of workers seeking high-paying jobs are flocking to places like Harper County, which had resorted to paying people to live there because of its declining population. Businesses are coming back from the dead and a housing shortage has caused rents to triple.

That is actually a description of what’s going on in south central Kansas, according to CNNMoney’s article Oil boom strikes Kansas.

Read more…

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07 Jun 2012

Bazhenov oil field. Another name to watch.

Bazhenov.

That’s the name of another oil play to put on your radar screen. I’ve seen several articles this week on it, so it’s probably time to mention it.

Read more…

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02 Jun 2012
1 Comment

Rig count in Bakken and Eagle Ford fields – 6-1-12

Count of drilling rigs week of June 1 – 215 and 276. 

Read more…

Posted in Energy and tagged , ,
29 May 2012
1 Comment

More illustrations of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Previous posts show superb illustrations of fracking here and here.   I browsed the ‘net and found a few more illustrations that are good:

Here is an illustration of the fracking process. Notice that the ground water is usually 100’ to 500’ below the surface. The horizontal run is usually 1 or 1.5 miles down. There’s  thousands of feet of hard granite that isolates the ground water at 500’. Notice the mile of rock in the illustration between the fracking level and ground water.

Read more…

Posted in Creative visualizations, Energy and tagged ,

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