Thanks clay, but I could not open the video. I am not successful at putting vids on my blog either without my guru, Shawn Baird's, help.
Sam
I crossed western ND a couple months ago and was amazed at all the oil works going on. Williston is booming with Halliburton
and other oil company equipment every where. Hotels are full of workers and trailer courts of 8x30 campers are going in. It is
a real boom town compared to the last time I was there. I didn't understand how they drilled laterally and I appreciate the information.
I think that one reason that it is booming is because much of the drilling is on private land in a business friendly state.
For those of you that haven't been following oil development in North Dakota, the Bakken shale underlies about the western third of the state
and is estimated to contain over 500 Billion barrels. Yes that is
Billion - not a typo. For comparison, Saudia Arabia has 25 billion and Alaska about the same. Recoverable with current technology is apparently 20% although two companies drilled two laterals in the same section in Mountrail County last summer. Up until those, the procedure was to go down vertically in one corner of a section (square mile) and drill horizontally (the lateral) at a diagonal across the section. (The
closing scenes in the video are not Bakken wells - the wells are too close together.) One lateral in each section taps into a very small amount of the shale formation. Multiple laterals in one section may substantially increase the recoverable amounts. I've seen the Bakken crude and seen chemical analyses of it - it is very close to kerosene or diesel fuel - some of the sweetest crude in the world.
Initial production from the Bakken wells ranges from 300 to 2400 barrels
per day depending on location since the shale seems to be different in
different areas.
The Sanish-Three Forks shale is immediately below the Bakken and
underlies all of North Dakota.
The Bears Den shale is below that and it also appears to underlie all of
North Dakota. No estimates on total oil in either of these yet. All
three of these formations extend into Montana and Saskatchewan.
I've seen one article on the Bakken oil developments in the Wall Street
Journal - nothing in any of the other media. Do you suppose that they
fear support for alternative energy development would collapse if the
public knew we have enough oil in North Dakota alone to supply our
country's needs for many years to come?? Apparently they would prefer to cover the prairies with wind farms and the deserts with solar panels.
Despite climategate and some seriously cold weather this winter they are still pushing global warming.
In contrast to most states, North Dakota had $1 Billion surplus last year
that they put into public schools and reduced our property taxes. Mostly
from the severance tax on oil.
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