The Midwest/Plains Oil Boom Thread

[GarfieldPark]

I heard on the radio yesterday that the recent strange earthquakes in NE Ohio were caused by the fracking. I'm a little sceptical - although it does seem to make some sense considering there hadn't been hardly any earthquakes in the area for decades - and now there have been a couple just over the past year or so -- just as more and more fracking is starting to occur.

Have you seen the videos where people living in areas where fracking is occurring are using cigarette lighters to light the "water" that comes out of their home faucets? Seems pretty concerning to me. I hope NE Ohio can see some great economic benefit from these oil reserves -- but I hope it doesn't cause an environmental castrophe at the same time.

[Bond James Bond]

Those earthquakes weren't caused by fracking - they were all centered around 5 injection wells in the Youngstown area owned by the same company. These are wells where they dispose of used wastewater from fracking operations, but they aren't production wells, and they weren't drilled with fracking. Basically they're pits thousands of feet deep they use to dump junk water in. These 5 particular wells seem to have the misfortune of being located near a fault. There are hundreds of other similar wells in Ohio which don't have any problems.

As for the burning water, what "Gasland" doesn't tell you is that the water in many of these areas was naturally high in methane before drilling began, it's just that no one thought of trying to burn it before the fracking began. That said, read my reply above about what Glowrock said.

[Bond James Bond]

It just keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger ....

In what is an interesting read itself about emerging US oil plays, there is a section in this article describing what appears to be three additional oil-bearing zones in the Three Forks, which is part of the Bakken system.

LINK (PDF)
^
Page 4 has a section entitled "Three Forks 2, 3, 4".

As if the Middle Bakken and Upper Three Forks plays aren’t big enough, the plays’ founder, Continental Resources Inc., is proving yet another layer of oil reservoir—the second bench of the four-bench Three Forks—in the vast Bakken petroleum system ...

It goes on to describe how Continental is in the process of evaluating these other layers. A few pages later just near the end of the section, we get:

“Our own estimate is that the Bakken petroleum system contains 24 billion BOE of recoverable reserves from the Middle Bakken and Upper Three Forks alone. Now we have the second, third and fourth benches to consider. There are three other reservoirs out there.”

Oil! We're all gonna be rich!

[Bond James Bond]

ND oil production exceeds 500,000 barrels daily

BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota oil drillers have surpassed a milestone of half a million barrels of oil a day, the state's top oil regulator said Tuesday.

State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said North Dakota now accounts for about 10 percent of total U.S. crude oil production, up from just 1 percent in 2007.

Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, which represents about 250 companies working in the oil patch in the western part of the state, called North Dakota's meteoric oil production growth incredible and said it's helping make the U.S. become less dependent on foreign oil.

[...]

[desertpunk]

Getting harder to ignore...

[desertpunk]

[desertpunk]

[Bond James Bond]

Gas and oil drilling creates government jobs too! Or at least, lots of overtime.

Gas and oil drilling a boom for Steubenville, and a draw for Gov. Kasich

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio -- Paul McKeegan has served two decades as Jefferson County Recorder, but nothing has prepared him for what's occurred in his Steubenville office over the past year.

...

But at the recorder's office Monday afternoon, Kasich's impending visit wasn't getting a second thought from the frazzled county workers.

"Since about last spring, it's just been crazy and I have no idea when it's going to end," said McKeegan. His staff now works until 7 p.m. recording land sales and handing out property records. It's even pulling four-hour Saturday stints with the extra hours footed by a prominent oil company.

The crowd was shoulder-to-shoulder as a few dozen people quietly picked through property deeds trying to figure out who owns what parcels of land. Jog down a flight of steps to the courthouse basement, and you find another 20 people spread out at long tables silently researching property records on laptops over a wireless Internet connection.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by Bond James Bond

As for the burning water, what "Gasland" doesn't tell you is that the water in many of these areas was naturally high in methane before drilling began, it's just that no one thought of trying to burn it before the fracking began. That said, read my reply above about what Glowrock said.

+1

Before oil was first exploited, it often bubbled up in creeks, along with naturally occurring gases and sediments.

[Jesse276]

Before mountaintop removal strip mining, hills & mountains would slowly erode into the nearby valleys. It's basically the same thing.

[Bond James Bond]

lol!

Walmart Is Tired Of All These North Dakota Oil Workers Sleeping In Its Parking Lot

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by Bond James Bond

lol!

Walmart Is Tired Of All These North Dakota Oil Workers Sleeping In Its Parking Lot

http://topics.areavoices.com/2012/01...orker-campers/

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by Bond James Bond

Here's what Glowrock (who works in the industry) had to say in response to an article that EPA regulations would shut down fracing. Sounds reasonable to me:

The following study confirms what glowrock said in my quote on the previous page:

It's not fracking's fault, study says

Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling deep into shale beds, then injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to shatter layers of rock — liberating trapped pockets of natural gas. The gas is captured for energy use, but the water and other byproducts have to be cleaned up. The procedure has been used since the 1950s, but it's become far more widely applied in recent years due to advances in horizontal-drilling technologies.

The researchers concluded that many of the reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground spills or other mishandling of the wastewater, Groat said. Other causes of the contamination include underground casing failures or poor cement jobs. "These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing," Groat said in a news release.

In other news, thanks to the oil in this new discovery in Ohio, as well as the one in North Dakota and similar ones in Oklahoma and elsewhere in the middle of the country, the Midwest is almost certain to be The Place To Be for (relatively) inexpensive gasoline for at least the next several years:

U.S. Midwest crude oil supply growth of nearly 100% or 808,000 barrels per day (b/d), combined with inadequate demand growth, will result in oversupply, transportation constraints and deeply depressed prices in the region.

[Bond James Bond]

Guess what folks? It looks like we might have another one of these in the Midwest - this time in SE Illinois, SW Indiana and NW Kentucky:

Leasing frenzy suggests two Illinois counties on verge of oil boom

Map:


Unfortunately, the only "big" city that might benefit from this is ... Evansville. Meh.

EDIT: I was just reading Devon's Q4 2011 earnings transcript and they've got a "stealth" play which they're amassing acreage in - plans to get 300K to 500K acres leased. Let's wait and see if I guess right and it's Devon who's leasing this acreage in Illinois.

Maybe I'll eventually turn this into a 'Midwest Oil Boom' thread.

[Drewbie]

That area is also part of the most seismically active area in the united states east of the rockies...

I wouldnt be so quick to destabilize that situation, after Ohio's rash of fracking related earthquakes this past year. Even Indiana has seen a couple quakes recently because of unattended 1900's era Tipton Till Plain Gas chambers collapsing in on themselves due to depressurization.

[Bond James Bond]

^
You do have a point, though the area in Illinois in the article seems to be at the northern (and less dangerous) part of the seismically-active area.

I suppose if they start drilling down toward the Kentucky part of the shale they'll have to be a lot more careful.

[Bond James Bond]

This is starting to border on the unreal.

According to Continental Resources, the amount of in-place oil in the Bakken shale and associated Three Forks formation now stands at ....

..... *drum roll * .... *trumpets* ......

900 billion barrels!!

CLICKY

Thank you, Harold, and good morning, everyone. As you may recall, Continental acquired 6 cores of the entire Three Forks formation in 2011 and discovered there were up to 3 additional layers where benches of low bearing dolomite within the lower Three Forks formation. The significance of this discovery, and what makes us such a game changer, as Harold mentioned is, that the volume of oil in place for the field, almost doubles with this added reservoirs.

Based on our estimates, the oil in place now stands at around 900 billion barrels of oil versus our previous estimate of 577 billion barrels of oil. This in turn, should ultimately translate into more technically recoverable reserves for the field. Just how much more remains to be seen, but we have taken the first step to demonstrate through the bid that the second bench of the Three Forks is a commercial reservoir.

[Bond James Bond]

Some good articles on the boom in Williston in today's Business Insider.

Even With Zero Experience There's A Place You Can Instantly Find A Job Paying $120,000

There are stories from Williston, North Dakota oil workers that are as hard to believe as they are entirely true.
I heard of one man who stood up in McDonald's one morning, hollered to whoever would listen, that "Today is the day I'm finding a job."

Within minutes he had the number of a guy looking for construction workers and was told to be back at McDonald's the following morning at 7:00 a.m. to start work.

Starting salaries for drivers, rig workers, and many other positions start at $120,000, but that can be up to 100 hours a week. One guy who worked wire line said he expected to make $300,000 this year. He'd made $30,000 over 10 days last month alone.

Damn!

And a photo gallery:
You've Never Seen Anything Like The Town In The Middle Of The North Dakota Oil Boom

[He Named Thor]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...oom/52053236/1

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/05/news...port/index.htm

We're producing more than we're using.

Our fuel prices are still much higher than other fuel exporters though.

[Bond James Bond]

We're not a net exporter of crude oil - not by a long shot. Notice it says:

It's producing more crude oil and, for the first time in decades, has become a net exporter of petroleum products such as jet fuel, heating oil and gasoline

It says "petroleum products" - not petroleum. We still import waaay more petroleum than we export. Here's the actual data (for December) to put it in perspective:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_crdsnd_k_m.htm
^
Domestic production of crude oil was 182,188,000 barrels
Imports of crude oil were 270,188,000 barrels
Exports of crude oil were 1,646,000 barrels

Refined products gets more complicated, but here again is the data for December:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_...mbbl_m_cur.htm
^
Total refinery production of refined products was 571,411,000 barrels
Imports of refined products were 22,706,000 barrels
Exports of refined products were 95,051,000 barrels
Domestic consumption ("product supplied") of refined products were 499,932,000 barrels

As you can see, imports and exports of refined products are a relatively small part of the overall picture. The lion's share of our domestic crude oil production and imports goes toward domestic consumption.

We would bascially have to nearly triple our domestic production of crude oil in order to completely displace imports, given current levels of consumption. That would be a fantastically difficult thing to do.