Posted on 11/16/2016 4:41:20 PM PST by Kaslin
Tuesday the U.S. Geological Survey announced the largest ever assessment of “continuous oil” ever made in the United States. The Wolfcamp shale in the area of Midland, Texas is estimated to contain three times the oil and gas of the Bakken shale formation in Montana and North Dakota. From the USGS:
The Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin portion of Texas’ Permian Basin province contains an estimated mean of 20 billion barrels of oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of associated natural gas, and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey. This estimate is for continuous (unconventional) oil, and consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.
The estimate of continuous oil in the Midland Basin Wolfcamp shale assessment is nearly three times larger than that of the 2013 USGS Bakken-Three Forks resource assessment, making this the largest estimated continuous oil accumulation that USGS has assessed in the United States to date.
“The fact that this is the largest assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that, even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more,” said Walter Guidroz, program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program.
Continuous oil refers to resources that are spread out rather than concentrated into a single area. So why is this massive amount of oil and gas just being assessed as recoverable now? Because technology has changed:
Oil has been produced using traditional vertical well technology. However, more recently, oil and gas companies have been using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and more than 3,000 horizontal wells have been drilled and completed in the Midland Basin Wolfcamp section.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports this backs up industry claims that the area could be the 2nd largest oil and gas field in the world:
The estimate lends credence to the assertion from Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield that the Permian’s shale could hold as much as 75 billion barrels, making it second only to Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field. Irving-based Pioneer has been increasing its production targets all year as drilling in the Wolfcamp produced bigger gushers than the company’s engineers and geologists forecast.
What liquid is 2nd to water on earth...oil
Sounds plausable to me, I’ve thought for years, well before reading anyone else say that the earth manufactures oil constantly.
They have even found areas where the oil was pumped dry years ago now contain more oil.
Been doing that since they figured out it wasn't rotting dinosaurs....
“...how can it come from the depths of the earth?”
Read up on the abiotic theory of oil. It’s far more persuasive than the dino theory.
No serious scientist claims that oil comes from dinosaurs. That was something erroneous put into children’s textbooks years ago. Kind of like how eating carrots makes your eyesight better, until someone went back and checked the math and found that they have missed several decimal places. The science of petroleum, as algore would say, is settled. Google kerogen. Tasmanites.
Bayard said: US consumes almost 20 million barrels of oil a day, so 20 billion divided by 20 million that is about 3 years worth of oil.
20 billion divided by 20 million days equals 1,000 days. 1000/365 = 2.739 years.
What am I missing?
The same thing occurs in the Permian Basin. Black, sour crude shallow and sweet, light crude deep. It is because there are multiple source rocks in the basin and they all produce a different type of crude. The sour component also has to do with thick beds of gypsum and salt in and around the reservoirs. Oil does not come from the mantle. It is a simple physical impossability. It is thermally unstable below, say 350F, and it breaks down into lighter components. Show me an oil field below 12,000’ except in a cool, slowly-subsiding basin like Mississippi or South Louisiana. Ah, but there are lots of dry gas fields below those depths.
“No serious scientist claims that oil comes from dinosaurs. That was something erroneous put into children’s textbooks years ago.”
It’s possible that you and I may be on the same page. I subscribe to the abiotic theory of crude oil origin. The biotic theory has never made sense to me.
The part where I said I needed to put on my reading comprehension glasses.
No, that has never happened. The only thing similar to what you describe has happened in the Gulf of Mexico. As a field was being depleted, the pressure dropped enough along the trapping fault that hydrocarbons from a deeper reservoir migrated up the fault into the existing field. Petroleum migration occurs at a very slow rate. One drop at a time. It rises due to buoyancy until it finds a trap or reaches the surface where it is consumed by microcritters.
You are full of crap and do not know what you are talking about.
Science is not a strong point with a fair number of posters.
I’m a geologist and petroleum engineer and have made an absurdly comfortable living locating oil, primarily in the Permian, but most recently (and profitably, as I bought the fee estate for $250/net mineral acre) in the Delaware.
You would think I could make headway, but I’ve generally given up.
What county? Why have you given up?
The Swedes drilled a test hole super deep, 20,000 ft, at Thomas Gold's urging, along the edge of the Siljan Ring impact crater, to see if they could prove or disprove his theories, but, it was inconclusive. Another dry hole.
It is impossible for these molecules to enter these shales, such as the Wolfcamp, because of their low permeability. The capillary pressures are too high. It would be the same as if you went to a brick in your house and tried to inject oil or gas into it. You just can’t. There is a wealth of information out on the internet about the formation and migration of hydrocarbons. The theories associated with Thomas Gold and the like are all junk science.
This will be drilled and the amount of money it will generate will be enormous.
“What county?”
Largely Pecos/Reeves/Edie (NM) recently but I did a lot in Martin, Midland, etc.
“Why have you given up?”
I haven’t given up on the oil business, sorry. Given up on the luddites who post all over any thread related to O&G.
You bought minerals in the Permian Basin for $250 an acre? Sign me up for some of that action.
Yeah, I get on these oil and gas threads all the time and it is amazing as to the ignorance about petroleum generation around here. I either hear it was the dinosaurs or some primordial ooze from the mantle. It is like to believe in the concept of source rocks is some sort of heresy. It puts you on par with Algore and Soros. The evidence is overwhelming. But there has been some methane come from the bowels of the earth as it is a common molecule around the universe. But now oil...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.