The Midwest/Plains Oil Boom Thread

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by hoosier

This is the last area that the Rust Belt needs to try to hitch its wagon to- a dirty, polluting industry. The problem with the Midwest is its backward focus. It needs to focus on clean, high-tech, and environmentally sound industries instead of ripping apart its land in a vain effort to make money off of dwindling oil supplies.

Ohio and Michigan are also attracting high tech jobs as well. Cleveland now has a thriving biomedical industry thanks to the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western University.

[desertpunk]

And Cleveland had SOHIO, the original Standard Oil entity. BP bought it, hollowed out its safety standards and sailed into the annals of infamy with the worst practices in the industry. Their shareholders want it broken up and how deliciously ironic would it be to see their North American unit returned to Cleveland?

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by manrush

It's better than nothing, really. And oil is leagues away from the dirtiness and pollution that comes from coal.

Oh really..has anyone bothered to read about the water pollution that comes hand in hand with oil shale "fracking"? There is no free lunch on this issues. It is passed off by the companies as "OIL" but it is really more like tar sands and residue trapped in rocks. I would be very cautious about giving any energy companies free reign for this production. It seems like backward solutions for a dying industry.

[dmoor82]

Good to see One of OKC's fortune 500 companies growing,and damn good news for Ohio as well.Great news for both States!

[atrain5371]

These things are fine and It's a good story for a part of Ohio that has seen tough times due to the manufacturing decline of the U.S. These are real jobs and livelihoods that will see an improvement.

With that said as we develop our remaining conventional energy sources we should not ignore the need to move away from fossil fuels and find other sources that are less finite and that do not contributre to making our world a less hospitiable place.

[Bond James Bond]

Another article on the story I linked before. There will be plenty more of this.

WSJ

AUGUST 2, 2011
Left for Extinct, a Steel Plant Rises in Ohio
By CLARE ANSBERRY

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio—On the edge of the Mahoning River, where once stood dozens of blast furnaces, more than 400 workers are constructing what long has been considered unthinkable: a new $650 million steel plant.

When complete, it will stand 10 stories tall, occupy one million square feet and make a half million tons of seamless steel tubes used in "fracking" or drilling for natural gas in shale basins.

France's Vallourec & Mannesmann Holdings Inc., one of the world's largest makers of steel tubes for the energy market, has decided to build the plant here next to an existing facility for two main reasons. Youngstown has an experienced steelmaking work force and the city is at the door of the Marcellus Shale, a natural-gas basin beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

"We're confident we can get this built and running quickly and when we do, there will be a growing marketplace," says Joel Mastervich, who runs the company's existing Youngstown plant, the V&M Star. The company, a unit of Vallourec SA, also has operations in Houston and other North American cities.

The shale market is partly responsible for expansion at other steelmakers, as well. U.S. Steel Corp. is investing $95 million to expand and upgrade its plant in Lorain, Ohio, which makes tubular steel. Timken Co. is spending about $50 million to upgrade its plants in Canton, Ohio.

The steel and shale-gas industries are symbiotic to some degree. Shale drilling, with its network of horizontal pipes, consumes huge amounts of steel tubes and pipe. Steel also is needed to build rigs and excavators for extracting gas.

[...]

[testdrive]

Hmmmmmm......I see where this fracking has been suspended in several other countries. I didn't realize how many different chemical were used in this process. So one has to decide what is most important.........short term job and economic benefits.......long term possible enviornmental damage.......some would argue a no brainer when it comes to the environment.......but when you are desperate and trying to feed a family.............it is tough to argue a "right" decision,best you can hope for is a balance and work as smart as you can to develop those technologies that will allow us to move past these methods of energy production

[Bond James Bond]

^
They're already working on fracking methods which use few or no chemicals at all. In about 5 years when they perfect the technologies it'll probably become a non-issue.

[Bond James Bond]

If this is right, Ohio is REALLY going to boom!

25 billion barrels!

Chesapeake Energy CEO says to Jim Cramer ...

[...]

- Could also be transformative for the entire country as they are talking about really big numbers. In the Utica there could be 25,000 wells drilled over several decades which would be over a $200 billion investment,

- In terms of oil and natural gas liquids, there could be 25 billion barrels of oil equivalent and could be one of the biggest discoveries in United States history.

[...]

[dmoor82]

WOW!Looks like OKC's Chesapeake Energy might be opening multiple offices in Ohio and possibly even a regional Headquarters if this area Booms as expected!

[desertpunk]

Maybe someone could build a refinery or two in Ohio to help boost distillate supplies and employ some more people.

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by dmoor82

WOW!Looks like OKC's Chesapeake Energy might be opening multiple offices in Ohio and possibly even a regional Headquarters if this area Booms as expected!

From what I can tell from their website, it looks like they're starting to open a regional office in Canton. If you go to their careers section and do a job search in Ohio, you mostly get some postings in Canton (16 openings so far).

[k25150]

If we had an administration who put America first and didn't pander to the kooks in the media and enviro groups, we'd see boom all over the country from gas, coal and oil drilling. We have more natural resources than anyone on the planet but are paralyze by the special interest voting blocks.

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by k25150

If we had an administration who put America first and didn't pander to the kooks in the media and enviro groups, we'd see boom all over the country from gas, coal and oil drilling.

We already *are* seeing a boom from gas, coal and oil drilling.

[manrush]

Originally Posted by k25150

If we had an administration who put America first and didn't pander to the kooks in the media and enviro groups, we'd see boom all over the country from gas, coal and oil drilling. We have more natural resources than anyone on the planet but are paralyze by the special interest voting blocks.

Those so-called 'kooks' are right on the mark about coal.

Oil and gas are a much cleaner option than coal and their extraction is more efficient in terms of time and money.

An even cleaner option is nuclear.

Weaning the country off coal is the best long-term option, both economically and environmentally.

So, it turns out this Administration does put America first.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by Bond James Bond

^
They're already working on fracking methods which use few or no chemicals at all. In about 5 years when they perfect the technologies it'll probably become a non-issue.

Well that is good enough, thanks for the reassurance. No reason to look any further into this issue. Back to the previously scheduled "oil" boom. Who needs clean water anyway?

[Bond James Bond]

Here's Jin Cramer's interview with the Chesapeake Energy CEO. That 25 billion barrels includes natural gas-equivalent, so the amount of oil-only is something less than that:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000036437

[testdrive]

Just am trying to sort this out...........since I am from Mi originally and we all know what has been going on there..........how does what we know about what potential in the SW/Central Mi deposits compare to the Utica findings and will the benefits from the Utica find impact Mi much?

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by testdrive

Just am trying to sort this out...........since I am from Mi originally and we all know what has been going on there..........how does what we know about what potential in the SW/Central Mi deposits compare to the Utica findings and will the benefits from the Utica find impact Mi much?

That is waaaay too early to say anything about that. Keep an eye on Devon, is all I can say. If they've just recently leased the land I suspect it'll be at least several months before we get the first hints - and maybe as long as a year.

One thing I *can* say about it is, from looking at the Devon chart on the previous page and noticing it says the depths are 7500-10,000 feet, that is just about perfect for a formation like this. If it's too shallow (say, 3,000 feet) you don't get such good pressure (though it does make for a cheaper well). If it's too deep (say, 15-20K feet or more), you get a much more expensive well (though you do get really good pressure). 7500-10K feet is a nice compromise.

That said, we know nothing about the quality of the rock there, so my description above comes with an "all else being equal" disclaimer.

[Bond James Bond]

Wall Street Journal

AUGUST 16, 2011, 4:31 P.M. ET
Producers, Refiners Sniff Opportunity in Rust Belt Oil Shale
By RYAN DEZEMBER And BEN LEFEBVRE

HOUSTON—Moves by Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp. signal that eastern Ohio's newest oil-shale field is so rich that it could trigger a Rust Belt oil revival—and perhaps reverse the fortunes of the battered East Coast refining industry.

If the Utica Shale holds as much oil as some producers and analysts think it does, a new source of relatively cheap domestic oil could boost the razor-thin profit margins of local refineries that must now source oil tied to European benchmark Brent, which is trading at a premium to most crudes that come from the interior of the U.S.

Although some refiners are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the Utica shale, Findlay, Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum Corp.'s Chief Executive Gary Heminger made no bones about the impact production would have in bringing crude oil directly to the company's refineries in Ohio and Kentucky.

"We will have a tremendous appetite if they can develop the [Utica] crude source," Mr. Heminger said during a recent conference call with investors.

If producers have any estimates of how much oil the Utica holds, they are keeping them to themselves. But leasing activity and excited explorers portend a bonanza, analysts and executives say.

The Utica is a deeply buried rock formation that sprawls below parts of eight states from Tennessee to New York. But it is eastern Ohio where explorers believe the richest oil reserves lie and where, for the past year and a half, some have quietly amassed vast land holdings.

[...]