[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'U')gh- you win Oil-Finder- we will have oil....forever!

[thuja]

LOL- well at least you made me smile

[Oil-Finder]

Oh, and just because I like to rub it in . . .
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oil-Finder', '
')Let's see how doable this is . . .

The US side of the Williston Basin, which contains the Bakken formation, encompasses approximately 143,000 square miles.

My research on Bakken well production indicates that, after an initial period of high production lasting a few months to a year, flow rates stabilize at around 150-300 bpd and stay that way for an extremely long time (source, source, and source).

I have read well spacing patterns in the Bakken including 160 acres, 40 acres, and 640 acres (1 square mile). Let's be conservative and go with 1-square-mile spacing.

Let's say that only 1/4 of the square miles in the Williston Basin end up with oil wells on them (sounds reasonable?). That would be 35,750 square miles, and thus, 35,750 wells using our spacing pattern.

Let's assume a low-ish average production rate of 200 bpd per well. With that figure, 35,750 wells would produce 7.15 million barrels/day.

According to this here, the average cost of a well in the Williston Basin is up to $3-$5 million, though I've seen figures as low as $2 million, and even less for some Canadian sources.

Let's go with an average of $4 million each. At that price, 35,750 wells would cost $143 billion total.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But keep in mind that Petrobras expects to spend $50-$100 billion just to develop the 5-8 billion barrels in Tupi. Suddenly the Bakken looks like a bargain.

And before you gasp at the 35,750 wells, keep in mind that Pemex expects to drill 13,500 wells to develop Chicontepec over the next 15 years.

To be sure, developing the Bakken to high production rates could take 10-20 years, but there's nothing un-doable about it. And it would hardly be the first time a large oil formation took a decade or more to fully develop!

[thuja]

Well done! Hey I'm done with the debate tonight brother...

But just a comment- the arguments you make for how oil production will last...forever..needs to be backed up by petroelum geologists, think tanks and reserach institutes to have much validity here. I tried to point to the most cornucopian of the bunch, CERA, to describe their views. You seem to be meandering past their rosy views to a world that has a ceaseless supply of never ending crude...

No credible person believes that...because the evidence isn't there...

Take it back a notch. We'll still debate you...but we won't think you're a loon...

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'W')ell done! Hey I'm done with the debate tonight brother...

But just a comment- the arguments you make for how oil production will last...forever..needs to be backed up by petroelum geologists, think tanks and reserach institutes to have much validity here. I tried to point to the most cornucopian of the bunch, CERA, to describe their views. You seem to be meandering past their rosy views to a world that has a ceaseless supply of never ending crude...

No credible person believes that...because the evidence isn't there...

Take it back a notch. We'll still dabate you...but we won't think you're a loon...

[Nicholai]

That's not what he means.

Everything is coming up roses, eh Oil Finder?

[Nicholai]

Double post.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nicholai', 'T')hat's not what he means.

[Nicholai]

For rich people, yes.

Lucky for me.

I will try and get a picture of it but there is a $12 million dollar home being built just a little ways from my house right now. It looks like the Imperial Palace in China.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'B')ut I am a tad surprised by your talk JD- I seem to remember you always talking about how peak oil is a joke- it doesn't matter, etc. But here you are talking about being at a plateau phase. Plateau is another word for peak- just a longer and less sharp peak...have you come around to that idea that we are surfing the top of the peak now?

[TheDude]

One more bit of Bakken, comments on the 24th at TOD: Permalink

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') little perspective on the Bakken formation:

My grandfather had a little spare cash and bought a piece of land (1/2 section) from a real estate broker who had bought it at a tax sale shortly after WWI. Just into Montana from the North Dakota border where the Yellowstone River is located (Richland County). They knew there was oil when he bought or soon after.

The problem--it was too little, too deep. In today's dollars it might cost a million dollars to drill down 2 miles to the oil. If you borrowed the money from a bank, you would get enough oil to pay about 1/3 of the interest on the loan. The rest you would have to pay out of your own pocket. If you didn't have it the bank would foreclose, sell the well (and associated mineral rights (leased or owned) and take a loss and someone would buy it at fair value of a couple of hundred thousand. You would not drill again and the bank would not lend again on such a venture.

About 10 years ago horizontal drilling became good enough to exploit oil in the Bakken and similiar formations. A horizontal well might cost 3 million dollars but a bilateral horizontal well would have about a mile of pipe exposed to the Bakken and bring up mayvbe 20x the oil of a vertical well. Enough oil to pay off the well in 3-9 months. After that a lot of profit. There are about 70 drilling rigs operating in Richland County according to a cousin who took a look last summer. So this is a "hot" area for drilling today. Scary because wells there according to 1-2 year old statistics I looked up from the Montana Oil Conservation Board show Bakken horizontal wells produce from zero to about a thousand barrels a day (initially). Call it 500 barrels average.

What is scary to me is that this is an exciting and "hot" drilling area today. Remember that the Spindletop well that started the Texas oil rush in that particular field initially produced over 100,000 barrels per day. One figure I saw was 140,000 barrels per day. Now that was something to get excited about! 500 barrels per day is pretty pathetic by comparison. Yet that is what excites oil drillers today.

But that is where we are today. Exploration companies can make good money on the Bakken. But it will never replace the big stuff that was discovered in the past.

FWIW

p.s.

The Bakken wells seem to have a short life. The first well on grandfathers mineral rights (the land was sold without rights) and adjacent (it takes 1280 acres (2 square miles)) to drill a horizontal Bakken well in Montana) after about 2 1/2 years is only producing about 1/3 of initial rate. If Spindletop had been drilled as a horizontal well it might have had a shorter life too. But if they got 20x the flow that would be almost 3,000,000 barrels per day. So horizontal wells do produce faster. But with just so much oil in place, they do not last as long.

No free lunch. Higher production rates do produce shorter lived wells.

[skyemoor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '
')Bakken is held back by its flow rates, as I've explained about 20 times.

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oil-Finder', 'I')f you mean why haven't CERA, the EIA and the IEA not included these things in their analyses, it's probably because they all prefer to be very conservative when putting out figures to be digested by the public.

[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oil-Finder', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nicholai', 'T')hat's not what he means.

[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'B')ut I am a tad surprised by your talk JD- I seem to remember you always talking about how peak oil is a joke- it doesn't matter, etc. But here you are talking about being at a plateau phase. Plateau is another word for peak- just a longer and less sharp peak...have you come around to that idea that we are surfing the top of the peak now?

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'T')hat said, I think it's good, from a debunking standpoint, to accept the peak oiler claim that we are peaking now, and show that, even then, we aren't in serious trouble. If it turns out that we aren't peaking now, so much the better.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skyemoor', '
')Yes, though some persist in spinning cornucopian fantasies. Let's examine one such...


Let's walk through the problems with the above one at a time;

1. The paper on nd.gov that Oil-Finder relies on is non-attributed; there are no authors or date of publication on it anywhere. Hence, we have little to go on with regards to the knowledge and veracity of the author/authors besides the gross indicator of the website itself.

2. The author/authors state "The methods used by Price to determine the amount of hydrocarbons generated by the Bakken are different from the traditional petroleum geochemical practices and are under dispute."

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', '
')Oil-Finder- this is why I am suggesting you are treading into loon category here. For you to say that you have learned about finds that are likely to change everything forever, and to state that groups such as the EIA, IEA and CERA are minimizing or worse, haven't seen the data yet...while you are aware of how unbelievably tremendous they are...is ludicrous.

Step back from the edge Finder...on the other side you will be laughed at for making assumptions based on your own research without any backing from established Agencies and thinktanks.

Take a look back at a lot of old threads where people went tooth and nail at each other over Yergin/CERA vs. Campbell/ASPO. You aren't even in the Yergin camp anymore- you are in the world of make-believe. Again, take it back a notch. Most folks won't agree with you if you take a CERA position here...but at least you'll be in the realm of the sane...

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', 'O')ne more bit of Bakken, comments on the 24th at TOD: Permalink

[...]

Sounds like this horizontal drilling right from the start is having the same effect as when applied in EOR. 35,750 wells might face a few land use snags, too.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'I') guess when you say debunking, you mean peaking and then declining oil production won't cause "serious trouble". If by that you don't believe we will turn into Mad Max road warriors overnight...then sure.

But we are already experiencing "serious trouble" in the form of accelerating energy prices... which in turn has had an effect on the world economy, inflation, which in turn is already having an effect on the world's poor and middle class. Extrapolating out with a continued plateau and then a deline in available oil is likley to exacerbate these economic effects. So to say there is no "serious" effect is just strange...because I consider you to be intelligent.