Submitted by: Lady E
This is the area we goose and duck hunt in in North Dakota . This has more oil than the Saudis have and we have to sell it to refineries in Middle East as we do not have enough refinery capacity in U.S. to keep the economic impact we need. It would take 10 years to build a refinery if we could due to the tree huggers.
Great video on how they drill the bakken wells
(I found this to be very very informative. I think you will also.)
I crossed western ND a couple months ago and was amazed at all the oil works going on. Williston is booming with Halliburton and other oil company equipment every where. Hotels are full of workers and trailer courts of 8x30 campers are going in. It is a real boom town compared to the last time I was there. I didn't understand how they drilled laterally and I appreciate the information.
I think that one reason that it is booming is because much of the drilling is on private land in a business friendly state.
For those of you that haven't been following oil development in North Dakota , the Bakken shale underlies about the western third of the state and is estimated to contain over 500 Billion barrels. Yes that is Billion - not a typo. For comparison, Saudia Arabia has 25 billion and Alaska about the same. Recoverable with current technology is apparently 20% although two companies drilled two laterals in the same section in Mountrail County last summer. Up until those, the procedure was to go down vertically in one corner of a section (square mile) and drill horizontally (the lateral) at a diagonal across the section.
The closing scenes in the video are not Bakken wells - the wells are too close together. One lateral in each section taps into a very small amount of the shale formation. Multiple laterals in one section may substantially increase the recoverable amounts. I've seen the Bakken crude and seen chemical analyses of it - it is very close to kerosene or diesel fuel - some of the sweetest crude in the world.
Initial production from the Bakken wells ranges from 300 to 2400 barrels per day depending on location since the shale seems to be different in different areas.
The Sanish-Three Forks shale is immediately below the Bakken and underlies all of North Dakota .
The Bears Den shale is below that and it also appears to underlie all of North Dakota . No estimates on total oil in either of these yet. All three of these formations extend into Montana and Saskatchewan .
I've seen one article on the Bakken oil developments in the Wall Street Journal - nothing in any of the other media. Do you suppose that they fear support for alternative energy development would collapse if the public knew we have enough oil in North Dakota alone to supply our country's needs for many years to come?? Apparently they would prefer to cover the prairies with wind farms and the deserts with solar panels.
Despite climategate and some seriously cold weather this winter they are still pushing global warming.
In contrast to most states, North Dakota had $1 Billion surplus last year that they put into public schools and reduced our property taxes. Mostly from the severance tax on oil.
http://www.northernoil.com/drilling.php
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