Free Republic

Drilling, Fracking Efficiency Fuels Oil and Gas Boom Published: March 23rd, 2014   By Bobby Magill Technological advances in drilling efficiency are one of the reasons shale oil and natural gas production continues to skyrocket in six of America’s biggest oil and natural gas fields, according to a new U.S. Energy Information Administration report.Production of crude oil and natural gas through the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is considered to have a significant effect on climate change because of methane leaks in the natural gas distribution system that haven’t been quantified yet. And, burning crude oil is a direct emitter...

Home   >   Environmental   >   Drilling Rigs are Moving at a Furious Pace – A Look At The Boom in Maps Drilling Rigs are Moving at a Furious Pace – A Look At The Boom in Maps By adam on March 6, 2014     0   Scientific AmericanBy David WoganThe impact of domestic oil and natural gas production has seen a significant uptick in the past several years. The rush of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in “tight” shale plays around the country is largely responsible for a resurgence of U.S. oil and natural gas...

Shale, the Last Oil and Gas Train: Interview With Arthur Berman By Oilprice.com | More Articles | Save For Later March 6, 2014 | How much faith can we put in our ability to decipher all the numbers out there telling us the US is closing in on its cornering of the global oil market? There's another side to the story of the relentless US shale boom, one that says that some of the numbers are misunderstood, while others are simply preposterous. The truth of the matter is that the industry has to make such a big deal out of...

Energy Companies Seek Ways To Capture Natural Gas From North Dakota Oil Boom By Meagan Clark on February 26 2014 6:04 AM Share this article Collapsing natural gas prices were an unexpected boon for North Dakota's shale oil bonanza, easing a shortage of fracking crews that had tempered the biggest U.S. oil boom in a generation. Reuters The oil pumped out of the Bakken Shale fields in North Dakota brings natural gas above ground too, but the state doesn’t have the infrastructure yet to store or move the gas to processors. So about 30 percent of the natural gas...

Natural gas had a wild overnight session, where nearby futures climbed from Thursday's pullback low at 4.653 to a new multi-year high at 4.996.

Shocking Prediction: Part II - The 'Second Phase' Of The Oil Boom Could Eclipse The First By Jody Chudley January 07, 2014   Last week, I told you about how the "second phase" of the oil boom could make the first phase look like small potatoes (you can read the article here).At the end of my article, I mentioned that if the price of oil drops below $70 per barrel, horizontal drilling plays could see their margins shrink considerably, along with investment returns.I know a lot of oil investors are worried about that potential outcome, so I wanted to write...

Shale gas to the rescue? By Robert Skidelsky LONDON ― The developed world is slowly emerging from the Great Recession, but a question lingers: How fast and how far will the recovery go? One big source of pessimism has been the idea that we are running out of investment opportunities ― and have been since before the 2008 crash. But is that true? The last big surge of innovation was the Internet revolution, whose products came on stream in the 1990s. Following the dot-com collapse of the early 2000s, speculation in real estate and financial assets ― enabled by cheap...

The developed world is slowly emerging from the Great Recession, but a question lingers: How fast and how far will the recovery go? One big source of pessimism has been the idea that we are running out of investment opportunities – and have been since before the 2008 crash. But is that true? The last big surge of innovation was the Internet revolution, whose products came onstream in the 1990s. Following the dot-com collapse of the early 2000s, speculation in real estate and financial assets – enabled by cheap money – kept Western economies going. The post-2008 slump merely exposed...

Some upstate New York state water wells naturally have explosive levels of methane gas, even in areas that aren’t near oil or gas drilling, according to a new federal study released Tuesday. The U.S. Geological Survey study found that 15 percent of groundwater samples from 66 household wells across south-central New York contained naturally occurring methane at levels high enough to warrant monitoring or remediation, even though none of the water wells was within a mile of existing or abandoned natural gas wells. Methane is an odorless, colorless gas which can be explosive in high concentration. USGS scientist Paul Heisig...

Drilling efficiency gushing in Marcellus Shale By Andrew Maykuth (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Published: December 20, 2013    TROUT RUN - When David Dewberry landed in Pennsylvania in 2010, the veteran of the migratory worldwide oil-and-gas workforce said he required more than a month to drill a typical Marcellus Shale natural gas well.On Dec. 4, a crew under Mr. Dewberry's direction dug into the mountaintop of a state forest near here with a diamond-studded drill bit. Mr. Dewberry reckons it will require only 16 days to finish drilling the well's full length, more than 2 miles."Since I came up here...

That cheap gas is also saving Americans money on their energy bills. But how much? Ask the experts, and you get a fairly wide range of answers.

U.S. crude oil production will rise faster than expected to a near historic high by 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which sharply raised its annual output forecasts on Monday due to the breakneck speed of shale oil development.

Contributor A truism, tacked on to the end of any respectable article, blog post or research memo on US Oil Production, is that the US only produces a small fraction of the World’s Oil Supply and that as such it can’t influence prices.