[Pops]

Drilling or “making hole” began long before oil or natural gas were anything more than flammable curiosities found seeping from the ground. For centuries, digging by hand or shovel was the best technologies that existed to pry into the earth’s secrets.

Petroleum History Resources


We don't talk about actual extraction stuff much so here's a thread for talking about drilling wells, where, how, how many, etc.

Right now in the US there are 1200 rigs making holes looking for oil - up 475 from last year and triple the number that were drilling for oil in '08! That is the green chart below-

I looked and that's more than were drilling in 1980. The supply problem was an obvious one then, we are told right and left that we have no supply problem now.

Of a total of 2,000 rigs in the US, 1,200 are horizontal wells instead of the (much cheaper) vertical wells that dominated for the history of drilling. Purple chart-
That probably should tell us something about the stuff we have left.



Bigger - pdf


Observations?


BakerHuges

[dorlomin]

The drop in total offshore is a suprise to me.

The huge surge in US oil rigs is also note worthy. 6 times as many for a small gain.

[Pops]

Most of the eastern gulf of mexico is under moratorium now but the Drill Babies are on the move! Big fights over shipping Canadian oil via texas and drilling off the TX coast are going on right now.

Basically a proxy fight between Oil Co shills and Treehuggers battling it out over how much to charge to privatize our remaining reserves and enable movement of Canadian tar-sand dishwater to China.

State of play: Political skirmishes over White House energy policy will unfold on both sides of Capitol Hill Tuesday.

House and Senate Republicans are planning to force committee votes on the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, and Senate lawmakers are also poised to spar over offshore drilling and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wir ... ght-energy

[Cog]

Expensive oil allows us to utilize horizontal drilling/fracking in tight shale formations. We are down to the dregs of what is left.

It also tells me all the easy/cheap oil is gone.

[rockdoc123]

nice charts. Basically shows exactly the changes going on in the North American (and mainly US) petroleum industry.
-the downturn in the US due to the 08-09 recession is evident pretty much in all states
- Canadian rig counts are always seasonal as shown due to spring breakup and road bans
-offshore drilling has taken it on the chin due first to the recession and then the KO punch from Macondo
-the US rig count is showing continued attention to unconventional
- note the change in US gas to oil rigs in 10 - 11. Everyone is moving to greater liquids rich areas and companies like Cheseapeake are even stopping operations in dry gas areas
-the move to liquids also shows up in the differences between states in 08 vs 11 numbers. The states that have higher liquid potential have increased activity in 11 vs 08 whereas the dry gas areas are reversed.
- Alaska is flat as it is all conventional and very mature or non-accessible

[Plantagenet]

nice charts. Basically shows exactly the changes going on in the North American ....
- Alaska is flat as it is all conventional and very mature or non-accessible

Yup. So far not much is happening.

But that may change soon. Shell is now on track to get their permits for offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea this summer.

AND a friend of mine in the Petroleum Engineering Department here at the University has a large DOE grant to evaluate some of the potential shale gas and oil areas in Alaska, and the state Geological survey is also doing a study to determine what areas are prospective and leasable.

Unlike the North Slope, where the feds control the land and have blocked access to ANWR, the best shale areas seem to be on state land, where the state controls the leasing.

I'm sure we'll see some drilling into possible shale reservoirs here in Alaska soon.

[rockdoc123]

Unlike the North Slope, where the feds control the land and have blocked access to ANWR, the best shale areas seem to be on state land, where the state controls the leasing.

I'm sure we'll see some drilling into possible shale reservoirs here in Alaska soon.

I doubt any of the tight hydrocarbon resources (and I know there are some as I was involved in a few wells that encountered them1) in the NPRA will be economic in the short term. What makes unconventional work is attention to costs. It is a marginal business and requires always trying to manage down costs while optimizing production and operations. In the NPRA much of the area is only accessible during certain times of the year (ice roads). You also need to be very close to facilities (pipelines etc) and that is a challenge for much of the area. There might be some sweet spots but the higher costs in this environment will likely make for difficult economics.

[Plantagenet]

I doubt any of the tight hydrocarbon resources (and I know there are some as I was involved in a few wells that encountered them1) in the NPRA will be economic in the short term. What makes unconventional work is attention to costs. It is a marginal business and requires always trying to manage down costs while optimizing production and operations. In the NPRA much of the area is only accessible during certain times of the year (ice roads). You also need to be very close to facilities (pipelines etc) and that is a challenge for much of the area. There might be some sweet spots but the higher costs in this environment will likely make for difficult economics.

Hey Rockdoc---thanks for all your great, informative posts.

The folks here in Alaska looking into oil shales in Alaska don't seem to be looking at the NPRA at all.

We had a talk at the university about the potential for frakking oil shales in Alaska from a guy in the private sector last year who was coy about the exact targets, but indicated they were somewhere in the Brooks Range.

The state geologists I know are looking at the potential of the Triassic Shublik Formation and some other shales underlying areas of the Brooks Range hundreds of km south of the NPRA---the thought is to find places where these shales could be developed close to the Haul Road and close to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system.




The University DOE study is looking at the potential around basins in the interior of Alaska like the Yukon Flats and Tanana Basin---the basins are already known to have some natural gas. This is more for local use.