Here is a recent update from Darrel Coverdell out in Montana. Now, if we
can
bring in wells into the Marcellus Shale here in the Appalachian area,
we
will be on our way!
Regards,
Ralph
Below is an article on oil
production from the Bakken Shale in North
Dakota. It is interesting how fast
the Bakken oil production is
ramping up. I expect that they soon
will
increase their estimate of total reserves available. Also, other
similar
shale plays are
getting much attention. I would expect that the U.S. should
soon be
totally independent of OPEC production. The real issue is
getting
the pipelines in place to get the oil to the refineries on the
Gulf
coast. The Keystone pipeline which needs Obama's approval is
a big
issue. The next couple of years will be interesting. It is
expected that
the Bakken
drilling boom will continue for at least the next 10 years. Lots
of
folks from Western Montana are in North Dakota or Eastern
Montana
working the oil rigs and making big money. The typical well
is
drilled vertically about 10,000 feet and then horizontally another
4000
to 6000 feet before fracking and being put into production. Most
wells come
on-line at over 1000 barrels of oil per day.
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) --
North Dakota oil production surged 42 percent
to 510,000 barrels a day in
November, exceeding the output of OPEC
member Ecuador, as energy explorers
accelerated drilling in the Bakken
Shale formation.
The state's daily
crude output topped a half-million barrels for the
first time during the
month, North Dakota's Oil and Gas Division said
today in a statement. North
Dakota's 6,300 wells produced enough oil
to displace imports from foreign
suppliers such as Iraq or Colombia,
Lynn Helms, division director, said in
the release.
Oil producers including EOG Resources Inc. and Continental
Resources
Inc. have spurred a five-fold increase in North Dakota's oil output
by
using intensive drilling practices to tap the Bakken, a
geologic
formation that stretches from southern Alberta to the northern
U.S.
Great Plains. It's estimated to hold as much as 4.3 billion barrels
of
tecnically recoverable oil in North Dakota and Montana, according to
a
2008 report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
"This is big news for the
state and the country," Helms said. "Oil
production in the state has
increased anywhere from 8,000 to 40,000
barrels a day every month since
June."
Production will continue to increase as drillers hone
their
techniques, Andrew Steinhubl, co-leader of consulting firm Bain
&
Co.'s North American oil and gas practice, said in a Jan. 6
interview
from Houston.
Rising Crude Production
In the Bakken
formation alone, crude production rose 56 percent in
November to 443,425
barrels a day from a year earlier, state figures
showed. Bakken oil accounted
for 87 percent of the state's total
November output.
Continental, the
Enid, Oklahoma-based oil company controlled by
billionaire Harold Hamm, is
the largest leaseholder in the Bakken
shale region, with 901,000 acres, based
on third-quarter 2011 data
compiled by Bloomberg Industries. Hess Corp. of
New York and
Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. are second and third with
900,000
acres and 680,000 acres, respectively.
Bakken crude is a
low-sulfur variety preferred by refiners not
equipped to handle heavier, more
corrosive types of oil. Bakken crude
rose 1.5 percent to $97.97 a barrel
today at the Clearbrook,
Minnesota, hub, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. The price has
increased 15 percent in the past
year.
Ecuador, with 500,000 barrels of daily output in November, was
the
smallest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries,
according to data from the International Energy Agency in
Paris.
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