Posted on 03/30/2008 3:11:22 PM PDT by BMC1
BISMARCK, N.D. - The drilling frenzy in North Dakota's oil patch has now reached beneath the state's biggest lake.
Oil companies have begun tapping crude oil and gas underneath Lake Sakakawea, using advanced horizontal drill techniques.
Lynn Helms, the director of the state Department of Mineral Resources, said it was a logical extension to the formation known as the Middle Bakken, which lies two miles under the surface in western North Dakota and holds millions of barrels of oil.
Wells aiming for the Middle Bakken are drilled vertically to about 10,000 feet, and then "kick out" for as many feet horizontally. The technology has made huge advances in the past decade, industry officials say.
"Land underneath the lake now becomes accessible without having to locate a well in the lake or right on shore," Helms said. "It can be accessed at an environmentally acceptable distance."
The Army Corps of Engineers has approved three permits for drilling beneath the lake and has requests for at least six others, said Tim Kolke, a real estate manager at the corps' Riverdale office.
Kolke said he gets several inquiries daily from companies eyeing spots to drill beneath Lake Sakakawea.
Just a few months ago, he said, there was hardly any interest in drilling beneath the big lake. Now, nearly half his time is spent fielding requests and questions from oil companies.
Kolke said the federal government gets about $1,500 per well for "site disturbance," but it does not get any royalties from oil production.
Owners of mineral rights on private or tribal land along the lake would reap royalties if wells were drilled on that land, Kolke said.
Dallas-based Headington Oil Co. drilled a well under the lake
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Sorry, the page didn’t come up. Here’s link to the article.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/03/17/ap4781804.html
What, cannot grow corn at the bottom of a lake? Aren’t we suppose to just stop oil and die.
It’s really really stupid to use our food to make fuel when we have the oil.
It is even stupider to buy oil from Mexico drilled from the same gulf deposits which our enviro-wackos refuse to let us drill.
I can't be soon enough for me. I am so tired of sending our money to the Arabe, Mexicans, Venezuela etc. I want to tell them all to go pound sand.
When we cut off their money supply, we will also cut off their weapon supply.
Our "food" has been used to make alcohol for centuries. Think about it next time you poor yourself a Jack Daniels neat.
Want to know what the by product from making alcohol is? Animal feed!!!
The same applies to bio diesel made from canola and soy bean crops.
want to know what is really responsible for grain prices going up? The high input costs of FUEL and fertilizer, plus some greed on the trading floor of traders knowing that sheeple are stupid and will believe anything they are told.
“It’s really really stupid to use our food to make fuel when we have the oil.”
As long as Iowa is the 1st primary state, we will continue to look for silly ways to subsidize corn.
There’s no political party that is willing to tell Iowa that we’re cutting off the funds for all this waste.
We have oil an we don't need to use a single grain of anything to make bio fuel.
Absolutely, anything we can do to stop giving all our money to the Arabs who are keeping the taps closed in order to keep the prices high is fine with me. That includes ethanol and bio diesel production, which does NOT affect our food supply at all.
Of the food we import, half of it ends up in the trash.
There is no food shortage in this world, and much more of what is simply wasted can and should go into fuel production to eliminate our need for oil imports. Even if it costs more, that money stays in America instead of funding Jihad.
Sure we do. grain prices need to go up and anything that helps that happen, real or imagined, helps the farmer make a living WITHOUT being subsidized with our tax dollars. Grains have been used for fuel long before oil ever was, and oil will not last forever, so they say. we need to develop sustainable alternative fuel supplies like Bio diesel, which is good stuff.
How big is the oil reserve projected to be? Was this the same project I read about yesterday that said there was more potential oil than in Saudi Arabia? Look for the “environmentalists” to try to stop it.
LoL! I don't think we have to worry about that. There will always be a bootlegger somewhere with an alcohol fueled hopped up v8 in his pick up to keep you well supplied.
“we need to develop sustainable alternative fuel supplies like Bio diesel, which is good stuff.”
We need to use the hundreds of years of oil in California and make ethanol use in cars illegal!!
i raced with it for years and it’s a crappy substitute for gasoline if fuel milage is of value!
As far as a racing fuel goes, it's the best stuff. I've raced with it for years as well. Gas mileage isn't a concern when you have an endless renewable supply. You get about 2/3's the mileage compared to regular gasoline. It's also very clean burning, and would eliminate the smog problems in some large cities.
The factors that matter:
cost of production
rate of production
I have been drilling in the region for years now.
The reserves are in question, since the thickness of the Bakken formation vary greatly through out the region. Some estimates are that there are between 200 to 400 Billion barrels. The more realistic figure may be closer to 200. The crude is of a very high grade and the distillates are 130 octane and higher.
Time will tell and a renewed drilling effort is expected to increase by June of this year. The future does look very good there however.
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