Category: Shale Oil

A subsidiary of said Monday it signed a five-year deal to send 65,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil per day to its refinery in Trainer, Pa. Delta subsidiary Monroe Energy signed the deal with midstream energy company Bridger LLC to supply about 30 percent of the crude oil refined daily at the Trainer facility. The crude oil would be sourced primarily from the Bakken reserve area in North Dakota, which the company says is cheaper than oil imported from overseas markets. "Supplying a third of the crude refined at Trainer from the Bakken further reduces the overall cost of fuel for Delta," Graeme Burnett, a senior vice president for fuel optimization for Delta and chairman of Monroe, said in a statement . Bridger is a midstream company that recently invested $200 million on railcars, which are said to exceed current safety standards for crude oil transportation. There’s not enough […]

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Oil services provider Schlumberger sees a "strong" outlook for upstream activity in the second half of 2014, with its international businesses expanding in all geographic markets and North America offering growth opportunities, particularly in onshore shale plays, its CEO said Friday. As the global economy continues to recover, the global oil market is relatively tight, although solid demand has been offset in part by pockets of supply uncertainty due to political events in parts of the world, Paal Kibsgaard said during a second-quarter earnings call. But in general, Brent crude that is holding above $100/barrel should encourage investment in oil-directed activity as US production continues to grow, Kibsgaard said. In 2014, "we continue to expect well-related E&P investment levels to grow north of 6%, driven by more development than production-focused activities," he said. Meanwhile, "exploration spending will be largely flattish in 2014 driven by lower seismic spending as international […]

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Oil services provider Schlumberger sees a "strong" outlook for upstream activity in the second half of 2014, with its international businesses expanding in all geographic markets and North America offering growth opportunities, particularly in onshore shale plays, its CEO said Friday. As the global economy continues to recover, the global oil market is relatively tight, although solid demand has been offset in part by pockets of supply uncertainty due to political events in parts of the world, Paal Kibsgaard said during a second-quarter earnings call. But in general, Brent crude that is holding above $100/barrel should encourage investment in oil-directed activity as US production continues to grow, Kibsgaard said. In 2014, "we continue to expect well-related E&P investment levels to grow north of 6%, driven by more development than production-focused activities," he said. Meanwhile, "exploration spending will be largely flattish in 2014 driven by lower seismic spending as international […]

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More federal drug enforcement agents are needed in western North Dakota, the heart of the state’s oil boom, Sen. said. Hoeven said he’s been working with the office of the state’s attorney general and local law enforcement officials on how best to tackle drug-related crimes in western North Dakota. The result of talks was that more agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency are needed to back up local and state officials. "That’s why we’re requesting that DEA station additional agents in North Dakota to help us investigate drug crimes and prevent drugs from coming into the state," he said in a statement . North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple in June boasted gross domestic product in the state had increased for the fourth year in a row and topped all other U.S. states. The state’s mineral resources accounted for 3.6 percent of the GDP growth. Oil production from the […]

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North Dakota production continued to climb in May but new requirements in the state’s flaring reduction plan slowed permitting activity in June and may lead to production curtailments for some operators early next year. About 75% of permit applications required an extra 2-7 days of processing time while the state contacted operators to obtain additional information on gas processing plans, Lynn Helms, director, North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, told reporters during a July 14 conference call. “At least 75% of the permits are missing one or more pieces of information,” Helms said. The state began requiring operators to submit gas capture plans with permit applications on June 1. Plans include information on area gas-gathering system connections and processing plants ; the rate and duration of planned flowback; current system capacity; a timeline for connecting the well; and a signed affidavit verifying […]

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The US could find its light crude oil production growth stymied if it doesn’t allow more of it to be exported, speakers warned during the US Energy Information Administration’s 2014 energy conference’s first day. John R. Auers, executive vice-president of Turner, Mason & Co. Consulting Engineers in Dallas, described what he termed “a day of reckoning” during a July 14 morning session. This day would come, he said, when US crude production exceeds refining capacity to a point that prices become so heavily discounted to comparable overseas grades that producers decide not to increase production further. IHS Vice-Chairman Daniel Yergin agreed. “The rationales for a crude oil export ban are gone, but the ban is still in place,” he said during his luncheon remarks. “We see a risk of a $15-25/bbl domestic light crude discount being locked in during the next couple of years, potentially limiting additional investment.” […]

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This was a good month for the Bakken. Production was  up 36,653 bp/d to 974,695 bp/d. All North Dakota was up 36,379 bp/d to 1,039,635 bp/d. This meant that North Continue Reading

This was a good month for the Bakken. Production was  up 36,653 bp/d to 974,695 bp/d. All North Dakota was up 36,379 bp/d to 1,039,635 bp/d. This meant that North Continue Reading

Article title LONDON, July 14 (Reuters) – By now everyone knows the shale revolution was made possible by the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. But although fracking has captured the popular imagination, and is often used as a synonym for the whole phenomenon, horizontal drilling was actually the more recent and important breakthrough. Mastery of horizontal drilling around 1990, originally for oil rather than gas exploration, was the decisive innovation that lit the long fuse for the shale revolution that erupted 15 years later. "Horizontal drilling is the real marvel of engineering and scientific innovation," David Blackmon wrote in Forbes magazine last year ("Horizontal drilling: a technological marvel ignored", January 2013). "While impressive in its own right, the main innovations in fracking have been beefing up the generating horsepower to accommodate horizontal wells rather than vertical ones, and refining of the fluids used to conserve water and […]

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