Bakken Oil

USGS ^ | 04/10/2008 | USGS

[reluctantwarrior]

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota.

[Smokin' Joe]

Earlier plays in the '80s concentrated on the Shale, but this one is in the Middle Bakken, in a layer composed of silt, sand, dolomite and granular carbonates.

Fracking enhances production significantly, but it is a reservoir as well, a better one than the Shale, and has been produced in vertical wells along the Nesson Anticline.

[reluctantwarrior]

It was from 1991 I think I will have to look for it though,anyone else have it handy??

[litehaus]

How'd Ol' Slick forget to make the place a "National Park?"

Oh, I forgot....it's coal his Asian friends have.....

[colorado tanker]

LOL!

[Red Badger]

I thought it was quite apropos.....A triple entendre!........

[colorado tanker]

Absolutely!

I hope this field is as big as advertised. From what little I've read the formation is very tight and it will take the latest technology to get it to produce in a big way.

[Red Badger]

This isn’t shale oil is it?............

[thackney]

If you want some more information, this article talks about drilling techniques needed to produce oil from the formation. Don’t confuse this with Shale Oil like Green River Basin in Colorado that requires heat to release the petroleum in liquid form.

Technology-Based Oil and Natural Gas Plays:
Shale Shock! Could There Be Billions in the Bakken?
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/ngshock.pdf

[Uriah_lost]

Smokin’ Joe is here already, I see.

[reluctantwarrior]

Thanks very informative on technical challenges to the Bakken oil extraction

[thackney]

I found the reference from the USGS press release:

“agency’s 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil”

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Looks like that was the earlier technically recoverable number while I was using an “oil in place” number.

[reluctantwarrior]

Thanks I am at work and didn’t read the whole press release

[Smokin' Joe]

Let's put this in perspective, though, and read the results section (last few paragraphs) here: Estimation of Sizes and Numbers of Undiscovered Pools, North Dakota Williston Basin

Also, for those interested, NDIC Oil and Gas Commission home page

Nap time for me. I worked all night.

[colorado tanker]

I think there is some shale in the formation, but no, this isn’t like the Western Colorado oil shales that require special techniques. As I understand it the Bakken is just a very tight and thin formation. In another posted article I read it will need newly developed directional drilling technology to produce in large quantities.

[Strategerist]

I figured they would lowball the estimate, but not this much.

I figured the early estimates were wildly exaggerated by people that didn't understand the technical details of petroleum geology, and then inflated by wishful thinking.

[Uriah_lost]

I think you just insulted Smokin’ Joe, I hope you’ve got some juice to back that up.

[tatown]

I think everyone might be missing the point. While the total field could be 500 billion barrells, the report today is only referencing the recoverable oil with TODAY’s technology. This number will continue to go up as technology improves. It’s already went up by 25x in the last 10 years.

[Smokin' Joe]

See the links at post 73.

You did not insult me, I don't make my money doing sales.

The laugh is that the people you have insulted are the ones who first wrote up the play (Price, now deceased), and those who are petroleum geologists or employees of the State Oil and Gas Commission, or work for the North Dakota Industrial Commission, none of whom stands to get rich by the estimate going one way or the other.

As for wishful thinking, if there was no element of that involved, everyone would be standing around Drake's original well, going "Now what?" The dream of a substantial ROI brings investment dollars. It is up to the rest of us to make the ROI happen, where the rubber hits the road.

As for me, I have favored the lower numbers out of the original estimate range of 100-500 billion barrels because I know the formation, not out of ignorance. I worked my first Elm Coulee well in 2000, and have done over 50 Bakken wells since, most of which were multilateral wells.

Note, too, the estimate is for undiscovered reserves, not known oil in place. One producing well and reserves are no longer undiscovered, right?

While the estimate is lower than many suspected, it is double what J LaFever postulated in 2006, and there has been substantial interest (read:drilling) since.

Note, too, this is not an estimate of unproduced oil (known) reserves, but unknown (undiscovered) reserves. Either way, it is still the biggest current find in the Continental US.

[HardStarboard]

Thanks for furthering my obviously limited understanding of extracting oil out of the Brakken find.

Be interested in your opinions as to the estimated quanity of oil as released by the USGS. Way short of estimates I read earlier.

Also, what do you think of Marathon Oil as an investment to capitalize on the Brakken find. I have read they have three hundred wells (either planned or being drilled) in the area.

What's the chance the anti-oil enviro-weenies will prevent any explotation of the area.

[Smokin' Joe]

It is enough to get wells drilled, and to promote exploration for even more than what is proven. I guess we'll have to settle for that until we prove otherwise.

I do not give stock advice, but from what I understand Marathon has/had quite a few wells planned, and they have drilled a few. I have no data on those wells as to production. There certainly is good potential in the areas which I have heard they are operating in (I am not aware of all of their acreage), but I would advise anyone to do their due dilligence before making investments, whatever they are investing in. That is neither an endorsement nor a reccomendation otherwise, just an admonition to do your homework.

The enviroweenies will have a real hard time here, with a population hostile to their line of stuff (they attack ranching and farming, too), a good landowner/state/industry relationship, and a good environmental track record up here for the oil companies.

When people are praying their mineral acres will be the ones with the next great well, it is hard to sell them on stopping drilling.

When the rest want a decent paycheck, they aren't signing on for any environmental restrictions which do not make sense, and the close cooperation of industry and regulatory agencies here pretty much does away with adversarial relationships there.

In short the enviros probably aren't going to slow anything down.