LOL! I remember Popular Science articles saying Nuclear energy was going to be so cheap electricity would be free! (But those were in the '60s).
If those of us 'dinosaurs' who have been at this a quarter century or more did not keep plugging along, and keep up with new technology (Jeez, I remember plotting drill rate on velum, lettering with a LeRoy set, and printing with the Godawful ammoniated Diazo process, which made a Schlumberger truck no place to be while they were printing logs, either--Damn, I'm positively Paleozoic!). , you would be riding your bicycle and be thankful you had tires on it.
While there have been some good ideas out there, ones which have made improvements, and there are more coming in all the time, If I had a dollar for every snotnosed know it all who told the rest of us we didn't know a crown block from a kelly bushing, I'd own a small country somewhere nice.
You must be not very far from where I have worked the last 6 years.
We are trying re-entries on some older leases that date back to the mis- ‘80’s. The casing sizes were the biggest problem, due to the extreme glut of casing then, they used 39# 7” and that posed a tool annular of only 5 7/8”. The difficulty to find motors, bits and tools that would work well in a 5 1/2” hole was beyond logical. those 4 3/4” tool joints pretty much put a serious bind on our build rate. WE came out 15 feet below the DIP line when we landed the curve. We wound up in the Three Forks and couldn’t get out of it. So, we rode it all the way to T.D. The ROP was in the 6 to 8 foot range. (PDC included)
The well was fracked just last week and it came in hot and nasty! It kicked hard and we had to feed it 14.8# kill wt. invert with a yield point of 16 or higher. We fugure the initial flow will average 2500 to 3000 BBl Per day for the first 90 days and then level off to near 8 to 9 hundred.
I doubt we will do any new re-entries, but our next several wells will follow that plan that we stumbled on to. We have targeted all of them in the Three Forks.
Any comments?
Anyone who tries to predict oil usage in 50 years by assuming that there will not be drastic and dramatic changes in technology is totally nuts.