Posted on 09/30/2012 8:02:27 PM PDT by Johnfordjr
Canada’s Encana Corp. and Denver’s Bill Barrett Corp. have partnered with local producers in Farmington to dig wells in the Mancos Shale in the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at bizjournals.com ...
Those involved in the project estimate up to 30 billion barrels of oil are trapped in the New Mexico portion of the Mancos Shale bed, with about 1.5 billion of those barrels being economically recoverable.
Two exploratory wells are expected to be drilled in the fall.
Read the full report here.
When I lived at Farmington there were gas wells everywhere. Last time I was back there in 2009, I noticed many oil field pumps operating where the gas wells were.
I got a little advice for them boy’s, they might consider drilling them wells, all that digging will wear a man out.
NM list PING!
I may not PING for all New Mexico articles. To see New Mexico articles by topic click here: New Mexico Topics
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So in the picture, which one is you? (ducking...)
A bit before my time. :D
Shale oil has been processed in Utah for as long as I can remember. The Sinclair oil company, and one called Utoco have made fortunes from shale oil. I don’t know if Utoco is still in business or has been absorbed, but it seems shale oil deposits have been largely overlooked for a good many years.
"Overlooked" because it's relatively expensive oil to recover.
But the price of oil is now high enough to make shale oil deposits economically feasible.
I think I know the answer BUT...If the price of crude is 80% of the price of gas:
How come when Bush-gas was $4.00, oil was at $140 a barrel, but now that Obama-gas is $4.00, it's only $90?
For one thing, demand isn't nearly as high now as it was before the Obama economy. There is some excess in refinery capacity.
Bump
Gasbuggy was east of Aztec NM. It fractured the rock to retrieve the gas and It worked! Unfortunately the gas was radioactive.
Another was set off near Montrose Co.
My dad worked on Project Gnome near Carlsbad in 1961. I still have his comic “certificate”.
So lower demand vs higher supply SHOULD result in lower prices at the pump. Do obamanomics throw all the rules of free-market economy out the window?
There is some excess in refinery capacity.
I hope that is the case, I thought we were losing capacity with refineries closing.
I thought the answer lay in the treasury, where the turbocharged printing presses are running at full throttle, buying our own debt. But that shouldn't affect the price ratio of crude to finished product.
Maybe so, but quite a few companies have being doing it all along. I remember one in southern Colorado in the late '50's called Durango Oil.
About the only place I can recall the price of gas being high was in Wyoming, where they DID process shale oil, but because there were so few gas stations, etc., along the not-quite-interstates, Wyoming was charging .46 a gallon when Utah was still pumping it out at .29 and .11 for diesel.
Both Utah and Wyoming also had refineries to take care of it.
The difference is that modern technology (horizontal drilling & fracking) makes deposits that were previously uneconomic into relatively prolific producers. More expensive to recover, but with crude at its higher price, worth the investment.
Cool!
Thanks for the ping Dave.
Ping.
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