Category: Shale Oil

Knowing where to place perforations and individual hydraulic fracturing stages remains a challenge for the oil and gas industry. As a result of incorrect hydraulic fracturing, approximately 25 to 30 percent of zones in unconventional wells don’t produce. “We understand where we want to place and drill wells, but often, Mother Earth is complex,” said Dan Buller, global advisor and principal petrophysicist for unconventional reservoir optimization and formation & reservoir solutions at Halliburton. “Placing these horizontal wells exactly where they’re targeted is problematic sometimes. Once you’ve done the drilling and/or geosteering, you want to evaluate where you’ve penetrated the earth model. Once you penetrate, where are the optimal places to stage frac a well and to place perforations?” To address this issue, the company created FracInsight, an unbiased repeatable tool that selects perforations and frac stage locations from the best available formation evaluation data along a horizontal well. FracInsight […]

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Continental Resources Inc. confirmed the repeatability and growth potential of its new Springer play in the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP) with four new wells drilled in Grady County, Okla. The Oklahoma City-based company estimates the four new wells – which had an average horizontal lateral length of about 4,475 feet – to have estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) of 940,000 gross barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per well in the oil fairway of the play for a well with a 4,500-foot lateral section. The four recent wells were drilled to an average vertical depth of approximately 12,625 feet and average total measured depth of about 17,650 feet. “These individual delineation wells in the play are generating excellent returns, with shallow decline rates compared to other unconventional resource plays,” said Continental Chairman and CEO Harold G. Hamm in an Oct. 23 press statement. “We expect to realize even strong […]

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Houston (Platts)–24Oct2014/540 pm EDT/2140 GMT New orders for land rig building continue even amid the recent drop in oil prices, and analysts and drillers insist that industry’s appetite for new state-of-the-art drilling units has not been slaked. Big land drillers Patterson-UTI and Nabors said during respective third-quarter earnings calls this week that they have each contracted several newbuild rigs in the past three months. Patterson inked deals for seven of its trademark APEX rigs and Nabors for three of its new PACE-X brand rigs for US work in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale of Louisiana/Mississippi. The Tuscaloosa is an emerging but fast-developing play where industry continues to work out early-stage problems relating to the depth, pressure and optimal drilling zones of the reservoir. Not only are drillers still inking deals with upstream operators for newbuild rigs, particularly for US use, but customers […]

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Technology has blindsided oil states “The price of oil will hit its floor and it will rise again,” President Nicolas Maduro assured Venezuelans, whose shaky economy depends critically on a high oil price. “Venezuela will continue with its social plans. Venezuela will move forward.” No it won’t, and neither will Russia, Iran or Nigeria. The only major oil exporters that are not in deep trouble are the Arab countries, whose governments have some room to manoeuvre because of low production costs, relatively small populations and big foreign currency reserves. Since June, the cost of a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark for world oil prices, has fallen by almost a quarter, from around $110 a barrel (where it was stuck for the past four years) to just above $80 a barrel. Last month, for the first time in decades, Nigeria exported no oil at all to the United States. […]

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Continental Resources declaring success in Oklahoma shale basin. (Photo: Daniel J. Graeber) The Springer reserve area in Oklahoma is emerging as one of the premier oil basins in the region, Continental Resources said Thursday. Continental, which has headquarters in Oklahoma City, said four wells in the Springer play inside the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province, known by its initials SCOOP, should yield as much as 940,000 gross barrels of oil equivalent for the company. "The Springer adds another significant oil resource driver to Continental’s strategic growth outlook," Continental Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Harold Hamm said in a statement. "It’s distinguishing itself as the most productive play in Oklahoma, and it’s right in our back yard." Oil services company Baker Hughes said shale basins in Oklahoma were among those witnessing the biggest gains in wells started during the third quarter. SCOOP lies in part of the Woodford shale that […]

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Bakken Well Recovery Costs Graph|Click to Enlarge Bismarck, ND-based KLJ Engineering recently completed a study commissioned by the North Dakota legislature to provide decision makers with data about the Bakken’s potential economic impact on the state through 2019. The full KLJ report , released in September of 2014, focused on 19 oil & gas producing counties in North Dakota, and incorporated three approaches to forecast the sustainability of oil and gas production: Economic analysis of the Bakken and Three Forks formation Projections of population, employment and housing needs Potential for CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) Of particular interest to industry is the impact of falling oil prices on future development. Earlier this month, Lynn Helms, the Dir. of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), said two things could hurt production: low oil prices and new flaring regulations. Read more : Bakken Development Threats on the Horizon The KLJ study provided some interesting […]

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Advocacy group finds Californians at risk from oil and gas industry. UPI/Kevin Dietsch LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22 (UPI) — More than 30 percent of Californians living near oil and gas wells reside in areas already heavily polluted, the Natural Resources Defense Council said. A Wednesday report from the NRDC looked at state records to determine what portion of the state’s population are, or could be, impacted by hydraulic fracturing operations . It found about 14 percent of the state’s population live within a mile of an oil or natural gas well and more than 30 percent of those live near industrial facilities or other environmental dangers. The advocacy group found that percentage of the population may be at risk should the state’s oil and natural gas sector expand. It said it found a link between hydraulic fracturing operations and respiratory and neurological problems. "Fracking is moving next door to […]

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Benefit From the Latest Energy Trends and Investment Opportunities before the mainstream media and investing public are aware they even exist. The Free Oilprice.com Energy Intelligence Report gives you this and much more. Click here to find out more. Slumping oil prices are putting pressure on U.S. drillers. The number of active rigs drilling for oil and gas fell by their most in two months, according to the latest data from oil services firm Baker Hughes . There were 19 oil rigs that were removed from operation as of Oct. 17, compared to the prior week. There are now 1,590 active oil rigs, the lowest level in six weeks . Select the reports you are interested in:Who Will be the Big Winners in the Coming LNG BonanzaHow to Play the Coming Boom in Advanced Fracking TechnologyWhy the Subsea Processing Sector will See Huge Gains in the Near FutureInvestment Opportunities […]

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URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/135558/Shale_Activity_Creating_Need_for_Updated_Data_Management_Systems Hess To Form MLP For North Dakota Oil, Gas Transport Assets Oil and gas companies should truly understand the scope of their operations before investing in technology solutions to address the complexity and volumes of data in shale operations. The current boom in shale activity in the United States is creating changes in business processes that are causing companies to react and analyze their information differently, according to oil and gas industry experts with Deloitte. Oil and gas industry drilling practices have been based on premises established a century ago, when companies drilled vertical wells and relatively straightforward operations. However, shale oil and gas wells are more complex, with multiple laterals, directions and zones. As a result in the shift in technology and drilling practices such as pad drilling, the doubling of lateral well lengths since 2008 from 5,000 feet to over 10,000 feet, and sheer number […]

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4592 Votes North Dakota oil drillers appear to be losing ground in the effort to meet state-mandated requirements to reduce flaring of associated natural gas at crude oil wells due largely to persistently high flaring rates on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. While operators overall appeared to be close to meeting flaring reduction goals, the issue has been complicated by jurisdictional confusion, significant regulatory hurdles, and potentially overlapping state, federal and tribal regulations, officials claim. This week, Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, said that statewide, 28% of associated gas was flared in August, just above the 26% flared limit set by the North Dakota Industrial Commission earlier this year. Under these rules, operators need to reduce flaring levels to 26% by October 1, then 23% by January 1, 15% within two years and 10% by 2020. Producers face dramatic oil production curtailment penalties if […]

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