Bakken Expected to Produce One Million bpd this Decade

The advent of horizontal drilling combined with the newly developed use of multi packers over the full length of the horizontal section in the oil bearing shale or sand is now revitalizing the whole of the North American oil industry.

I will try not to be screaming optimistic but every oil saturated formation is now getting a second look.  I suspect that the Mississippi in Kansas is still a dog because it is too thin and has no gas drive but let us not be too sure.

There have been a lot of oil saturated sands encountered on the way to paying formations that suddenly look interesting even if the produced formations are so badly wrecked as to make the new methods useless.  Again even there I am not so sure.  I now think that we are going to be able to give every old field a final squeeze.

In the event the toughest field we knew of is now been turned into a prolific source of oil that is easily on the way to its first million per day production flow.  That should prove the case for everyone.

North America is possibly on its way back to internal self sufficiency in oil production.  This may seem wild, but it is not impossible with the Canadian reserves also getting tapped with THAI technology and the sheer depth of available drilling technology.

Seventy to eighty drills in the Bakken can soon be seven hundred such drills because this is all development drilling.  There are negligible dry hole costs to defray.  This will be true everywhere in North America.

Bakken Oil Output Expected to Grow

May 4 2010 7:23PM

http://www.kxnet.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=566032

What we know about the Bakken  now, is just the beginning.

According to one energy expert at this week's oil conference in Bismarck if you compare the Bakken to other oil producing fields...it could be one of the top 20 ...in the world.

David Hobbs is forecasting that by the end of the decade, production in the Bakken will be one million barrels a day.

And considering the world consumes 85 million barrels a day that means more than one percent would come from the Bakken.

(David Hobbs, Energy Strategist) "The potential production is far greater than anyone would have admitted to even a couple years ago. The rate at which innovation is changing the unit costs to bring it into the attractive oil prices - will ensure that activity keeps on going."

Hobbs' forecast is based on the acreage that's available and the number of wells that can be drilled on that land.

He spoke on today - the final day of the Williston Basin Oil Conference in Bismarck.

MAY 07, 2010

Prediction of one million barrels per day from Bakken Oil Field by 2020

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/prediction-of-one-million-barrels-per.html

David Hobbs, IHS, Cambridge Energy Research Association (CERA), is forecasting that by the end of the decade, production in the Bakken will be one million barrels a day

"The potential production is far greater than anyone would have admitted to even a couple years ago. The rate at which innovation is changing the unit costs to bring it into the attractive oil prices - will ensure that activity keeps on going." Hobbs' forecast is based on the acreage that's available and the number of wells that can be drilled on that land. (speaking at Williston Basin Oil Conference in Bismarck)

70-80 rigs a year can drill 1,000 wells a year... And Hobbs also watched as production rates in the Bakken have reached higher levels with the help of new technology..

In addition he says the Bakken could out perform what he's predicting because he may have underestimated the improvements in technology

In February, 2010 there was 261,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota Oil. There was 65,000 barrels per day from Bakken Oil in Saskatchewan and about 50,000 barrels per day from Bakken oil in Montana. 

Underneath most of the Bakken oil field is the Three Forks Formation which doubles the amount of recoverable oil. 

North Dakota oil production has been predicted to be 350,000 barrels per day at the end of 2010 and in the 400,000 barrel per day range for 2011-2012