Can someone explain the process of heating the oil before they pump it out? Thanks
The oil was two miles down and trapped in tightly packed horizontal layers of shale that were easy to miss with conventional drilling.
Is this the same 'shale oil' that Jimmah predicted would be our savior from the clutches OPEC??
I'd hate to see that the ijit was right - just a few decades off. If so the moonbats will go nuts, they'll want him on Mt. Rushmore.
If these environmentalist wackos are so concerned about the earth why aren't they protesting in Venezuela, China or the Gulf States where environmental concerns in the oil industry are almost an afterthought?
ping
See any names you recognize in this article?
My understanding of the history of the Nazi’s is that they fueled their war mostly with oil from Romania until they captured the Soviet oil fields in the Caucusus in ‘41 and ‘42. By late 1944, after the US had bombed the Romanian oil tanks and refineries at Ploesti, and after the Nazis were pushed out of the Caucusus, they refined enough oily shale—which they mined from within Germany itself—into motor fuel to supply their war effort, including the massive offensive in the Ardennes Forest (Battle of the Bulge). What happened to that technology? The Germans apparently mastered it in a matter of months. Compare that to Jimma Cawta’s multi-billion dollar Synfuels boondoggle.
There are ample opportunities for US eneregy independence at low prices if Democrats and their attendant enviromental extremists would step aside. High prices and limited access to resources are beneficial to them and their special interest political classes.
Excellent! It’s time to take the restraints off the oil industry. We need both new supplies and new refinery capacity if we are to wean ourselves off Middle East and South American crude. We should all be marching toward the day when the President can hold a press conference to announce to the world that we no longer need ME or SA crude, and would they please go pound sand...
Thanks for posting this good news thread.
Fast forward to 2007. On the day before Thanksgiving, Ness counted 54 rigs in the field............
The USGS wants to check out an estimate by the late Denver-based USGS geochemist Leigh Price, who wrote in 1999 that the Bakken's shale potentially contained 413 billion barrels of oil. By comparison, Alaska's North Slope, the nation's largest oil resource, holds between 50 billion and 70 billion barrels of oil.
You all realize what a disaster this is don't you? It can lead to a extremely nasty global recession, not a sharp rise in production. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934873/posts?page=24#24
Who would have thought little ole' capitalistic North Dakota would bring the worlds economy to its' knees? Not me.
Not only that, but it seems like Peak Oil, that ubiquitous curse of civilization is perhaps NOT occurring at this moment, but will be retreating to the horizon again, eternally mocking us. Can’t we EVER get that behind us?
And here I thought, with the world was awash in oil, this find in ND would be a bright spot for everyone, no, instead it's probably our doom clock ringing..
- In Mountrail County, North Dakota, EOG has reported successful drilling from the Bakken Formation.
- The Wenco #1-30H, in which EOG has a 52% working interest, was completed to sales at the end of September at an initial production rate of 1,930 barrels of oil per day (Bopd), gross.
- Also in Mountrail County, the Austin #1-02H was completed to sales in October at an initial production rate of 2,000 Bopd. EOG has a 100% working interest in the well, which is located nine miles north of existing production. This is the northernmost location that EOG has drilled to date.
Those are quite respectable well rates. But the well rates must fall off a good bit if they only expect to ultimately recover 700,000 barrels from one well.
The most optimistic estimates for the Bakken are over 400 BILLION barrels.
A true miracle - high oil prices and new technologies converge!!!!