Posted on 02/09/2011 1:07:50 PM PST by Son-Joshua
A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.
Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.
This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.
"That's a significant contribution to energy security," says Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Credit Suisse.
Oil engineers are applying what critics say is an environmentally questionable method developed in recent years to tap natural gas trapped in underground shale. They drill down and horizontally into the rock, then pump water, sand and chemicals into the hole to crack the shale and allow gas to flow up.
Made possible in large part by gubmint regulation which prohibits recovering a large portion of the known easily recoverable oil......
He’ll do what Clinton did with one of the largest coal deposits in the world (right here in the US), designate the prime areas as national parks.
can that be un-designated?
Water wells may have used dynamite but the oil business used nitrogylcern. Still remember when a someone screwed up loading nitro into a well in southern Oklahoma. Never found out exactly what happened or much of the two guys who were doing the loading.
bump and run
How does this change peak oil? An extra 2 mil barrels a day will not represent a new peak in production. Not even close.
Actually this kind of story seems to reaffirm peak oil. It’s getting harder and harder to get less and less oil.
Exactly. And the only reason they’re making the effort, is because at $100 + a barrel, it’s now worth their time.
The market will take care of diminishing supply.
What's scary is when self-serving dictators choose to impose their opinion of how much oil should be produced/consumed into the equation.
My brother had worked for years on the Western Slope of Colorado in the Parachute and Rifle areas. The Left has largely shut down drilling and exploration on the BLM lands there.
He is now in North-West North Dakota surveying for gas and oil lines on private lands there. The Bakken Reserve is causing a gold-rush-like boom there.
Unfortunately, there is a distinct lack of accommodations for the workers there. They can’t house the workers that can build housing for the other workers.
I mentioned the other day I didn’t understand why OPEC isn’t talked about on a regular basis like it was in the 70s.
My understanding as to why drillers left Colorado was due to the state gov’t turning very left and being dominated by the enviromental wackos. Don’t think it was due to the lack of oil to extract.
Under existing law, it can't be undone. Clinton actually designated it a "National Monument," not a "National Park." It was one of the two largest deposits of hard, "clean coal" in the world. The other is in Indonesia and is owned by one of the players behind some of the funky foreign money that might have made its way into the 1996 Clinton presidential campaign. It was a huge scandal that the Democrat Party Propaganda Ministry (what we used to call "the press" in this country) never covered. Nothing to see here, move along.
Chickensoup wrote:
can that be un-designated?
ExpatCanuck wrote:
Hell do what Clinton did with one of the largest coal deposits in the world (right here in the US), designate the prime areas as national parks.
Even if you get a Congress that's willing to change the law to allow the "National Monument" to be released and mineral leases sold or the land to be sold, there could be financial ramifications. That national monument (and the value of the coal under it) is now an "asset" of the United States government. If the government releases those assets, our bond rating might suffer. That's purely speculation, but if the law were changed, that aspect of the transaction would have to be explored.
Here in SW Pa, Chesapeake didn’t make the splash everyone thought they would. Range Resources seems to have taken the lead and is the major player for now. Chevron just purchased Atlas Energy, a small independent gas producer in this area. Interesting to see if more gas producers get bought by oil companies.
Exactly but the enviro wackos were closing down the easy to drill government land and most of what was left was harder to extract.
bfl
Exactly. You can bet your last dollar that Obama will make sure that there will be no permits issued.
“...no permits issued...”
They’ve already drilled thousands of new wells in western North Dakota and eastern Montana.
As the post above sez there is a frenzied gold rush atmosphere in the area, and poor hardscrabble farmers are being made millionaires every day.
Google Bakken Formation and you’ll see some pictures.
There are a least a couple Freepers who are working out there now.
You might want to look at those numbers again. Total World Oil supply is up to 86.835 MMBPD.
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