This
is a story worth telling. It also reminds us that every advance made
by humanity needs a champion no matter how small. You can also be
sure that Findley's expectations on the first test wells were quite
circumspect.
It
turns out that the early flush production is huge and over pressure
of the rocks is very encouraging. It suggests that merely stepping
sideways a modest distance will see any well replicated. I do not
know how modest is modest yet. If we could step sideways a couple
hundred meters and drill a parallel well which is something not
easily allowed by regulation.
In
the meantime, thousands of wells need to be drilled just to earn the
land and that will continue for a long while yet.
Bakken 201 with
Brian Hicks
Thursday, February
28th, 2013
Energy Newsletter.
By the 1990s, most oil companies had given up on trying to coax
the oil trapped in tight shale to the surface from the Bakken.
Dick Findley is credited with cracking the code for the Bakken in
1996, ultimately leading to the development of the giant Elm Coulee
Field (known as "Sleeping Giant" at the time) in the Bakken
in Eastern Montana.
Findley's discovery was so epic, he was awarded Explorer of the
Year in 2006, some 10 years after his discovery.
You see, a few miles outside Sidney, Montana, Findley uncovered a
layer of dolomite, a porous mineral running between two shale layers
where oil and gas had previously been found.
His theory was simple: If the dolomite was drilled and fractured
in the right direction, it would draw in oil from the shale above and
below.
Findley hoped this "two-for-one" approach would make the
vast Bakken field economical to produce where other approaches had
failed.
But he needed a company with deep pockets and expertise in
horizontal fracturing to accomplish this...
Findley got his wish
when oil giant Halliburton signed on to test his theory.
In 1998, Halliburton invested in a limited number of drilling
programs in the Bakken. Drilling began in early 2000. The first well
drilled by Halliburton — christened Burning Tree State — called
for a 10,000-foot vertical well with a 3,000-foot horizontal drill
well.
While all of this was going on, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
launched a study to determine how large the oil reserve was, and how
it would impact the U.S. oil industry — which, at that time, was
experiencing an all-time low.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) made the biggest
estimate on what U.S. oil companies could expect to harvest from the
Bakken Basin: a whopping 503 billion barrels of oil.
Today, the Bakken is
considered one of the largest (possibly the largest) continuous
hydrocarbon accumulations in the world.
It's an over-pressurized system, which is why wells drilled have
such high initial production rates.
The high pressure in the Bakken suggests the oil is contained
within the source rock itself. This means the oil remains in place
and is tightly contained throughout the geologic structure.
Typically, highly-pressurized source rocks squeeze oil out into
surrounding reservoirs, which also produce surface seeps.
The formation's high pressure — coupled with advances in
technology — make each well drilled in the Bakken capable of
producing 600,000 and 700,000 barrels of oil over the course of its
life.
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