Category: Shale Oil

GNRL Oil & Gas makes oil discovery at ND#1A well in Dholasan field in Gujarat, India. There continues to be great potential for surprises to the upside in production of U.S. tight oil according to Wood Mackenzie’s latest integrated analysis. "Growth in U.S. tight oil continues to impress as development technology and techniques have yet to mature beyond adolescence," said Phani Gadde, Senior North America Upstream Analyst for Wood Mackenzie. To better illustrate, Gadde said additional volumes from Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) will come on stream after 2020, and could add 1.5 to 3 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2030, up to 25 percent more oil than is being forecasted today. These technologies are in early test phase and not commercial yet, but indicators suggest up to a 100 percent increase in recovery rates. There are pilot tests that are underway with operators like EOG testing it out in […]

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If its Monterey Shale potential is fully realized, California could get back to its modern-day high levels of oil production at the 1 million b/d mark, but ongoing issues of water and energy sustainability may get in the way, the state’s oil/natural gas supervisor said during a panel discussion Thursday night at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles. “Oil in California is produced from aquifers, and we actually produce way more oil than water,” said Steve Bohlen, head of the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR). He said the state’s oil production is 600,000 b/d. “Ultimately the question becomes whether that water [produced with oil] could be put to some beneficial use.” Bohlen spoke on a panel discussion on “California’s Sustainable Future: Water and Energy Challenges,” hosted by a local chapter of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES). It included representatives from […]

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IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 19 (UPI) — Exxon Mobil said it added to its portfolio in the Permian shale basin in Texas in exchange for a portion of its field operations in California. Exxon under the terms of a non-monetary exchange with LINN Energy gets 17,000 net acres in the Permian basin in exchange for 500 acres at its Belridge field in California. Permian production increased 58 percent from 2007 to reach 1.35 million barrels per day last year, which represents 18 percent of total U.S. crude oil production. Exxon said the Belridge field is producing approximately 3,400 bpd. The Permian area will be operated by Exxon’s subsidiary XTO Energy Inc. "We continue to expand our leasehold position in a prolific area that is poised for profitable volumes," Randy Cleveland, president of XTO Energy, said in a Thursday statement. For LINN, it said it would examine 300 potential future drilling […]

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Hess To Form MLP For North Dakota Oil, Gas Transport Assets WILLISTON, N.D., Sept 18 (Reuters) – Some of North Dakota’s oil companies likely will experience a production dip starting next month as they try to meet aggressive new flaring standards, Governor Jack Dalrymple said on Thursday. Flaring, the wasteful burning of natural gas that is extracted alongside crude, has become a widespread problem in the state, the nation’s second-largest oil producer. In an effort to curb the problem, which harms quality of life and reduces tax revenue, state regulators will require companies to flare no more than 26 percent of produced gas starting Oct. 1, with standards tightening in the future. If producers fail to meet the standards, they will have to curb production. "A lot of people were surprised we took that step because there are going to be some operators impacted by this," Dalrymple, a Republican, […]

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Shipping companies probably will miss out on exports from the record U.S. grain harvest because the shale-oil boom is clogging up rail lines to ports. While the U.S. will reap the most crops ever, fourth-quarter export cargoes will be 15 percent lower than last year, according to RS Platou Markets AS, a Norwegian bank specialized in shipping. Rates for Panamaxes, the most commonly used vessels for grains, averaged $7,574 a day this year, headed for the lowest level since at least 1999, Baltic Exchange data show. The U.S. shale-oil boom means energy shipments are dominating rail networks at the expense of grains. The Association of American Railroads says crude moved by rail almost doubled last year. The bottlenecks may persist because the Energy Department is predicting the most oil output in 45 years in 2015. “If you’re an owner, you’re banking on a bumper season of exports,” Erik Nikolai […]

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 We use the period starting with January 2010 when crude production had come back to 2005 levels after the exceptional year of 2009. Fig 1: US crude oil vs crude oil in rest-of-world While US shale oil production is growing, there was a drop in crude production in the rest of world since February 2012 of almost 2 million barrels/d. How did this come about? As usual, there is decline and growth and then we have geopolitics. The following graphs show how much is contributed by whom. Incremental oil production is calculated as monthly oil production minus the minimum monthly production in a given period: Fig 2: Incremental Saudi crude production (yellow area) in relation to total production This is an example how incremental production is defined. The drop in Saudi production in the last quarter of 2012 and 1st half of 2013 has not been explained. There is usually […]

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Mineral owners left out of the energy boom in Colorado and other states are mobilizing to fight local fracking bans they say are depriving them of billions of dollars in oil and natural-gas royalties. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper repeatedly invoked the rights of his state’s 630,000 royalty holders to head off ballot measures that would have given local governments more control over energy drilling. Now owners of royalty interests are going public, organizing in an effort to exploit deposits that cities and counties have blocked them from developing. “We have valuable minerals in the Niobrara that may be worth some money — a lot of money,” Bill Peltier said of rights in an oil shale formation that his family has held for five generations. “They should pay me off for those mineral rights.” Mineral owners are emerging as a potent force in the escalating battle between residents and producers […]

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The Consequences Of Fracking: Two Clashing Views Two academic studies of the health dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have produced different conclusions. One, conducted by Yale University, said people living near fracking sites report increased health problems . The other, by Penn State University, says fracking water stays underground, far below the groundwater supplies that people use for drinking, and poses no threat . Both studies were conducted in Pennsylvania, part of the Marcellus Shale formation in the sprawling Appalachian Basin in the eastern United States. It holds enormous reserves of gas and has been a focus of fracking activity and protests. In the Yale study, former Yale medical professor Dr. Peter Rabinowitz reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that residents living near a fracking site in southwestern Pennsylvania were more than twice as likely to report skin problems and respiratory illnesses than those living farther away. […]

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The aftermath of an earthquake in Segundo, Colo., in 2011. Scientists have linked the magnitude-5.3 quake with nearby wastewater injection, a process used in drilling. Associated Press A magnitude-5.3 earthquake that hit Colorado in 2011 was likely caused by the injection of wastewater into the ground, a process used in natural-gas drilling, according to new research to be released Tuesday. The new study, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, adds more detail to a growing body of work seeking to establish and explain the connection between human activity and seismic events, known as induced quakes. Geologists have been intensely focused on the field in the past few years, as some states, including Oklahoma, Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico, have seen a rise in quakes that coincides with an uptick in activities associated with oil and gas extraction, scientists say. According to the American Petroleum Institute, […]

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