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Page added on October 17, 2012
Norway, Afflicted by Peak Oil, Invades the U.S. Bakken Reserves
The Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the Department of Energy (DOE) recently reported increased oil production from the Bakken formation, an area of about 200,000 square miles located in Williston Basin found in parts of North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan. “North Dakota’s oil production averaged 660 thousand barrels per day (bbl/d) in June 2012, up 3% from the previous month and 71% over June 2011 volumes.” The graph below shows North Dakota oil production from the Bakken formation from January 2005 to May 2012.
According to the Oil & Gas Journal, “A conservative estimate of oil in place in the Bakken is 300 billion barrels, but it is locked in low permeability rock. Continental Resources Inc. places the quantity of recoverable oil in the US Bakken at as much as 24.3 billion barrels. Horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing make commercial scale oil production possible.”
There are dozens of operating companies located in the Bakken region. Some of these include Conoco Phillips, Encana Corporation, Gulf Port Energy Corporation, Hess Corporation, and Marathon Oil Corporation. Recently, ExxonMobil became a player with a payment of $1.6B in cash for Denbury Resources’ Williston Basin assets.
Statoil, a state-owned Norwegian company, is a major Bakken player with the expectation of producing 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent by 2020. “The majority of the increases in North America will come from U.S. operations focused in the Marcellus, Eagle Ford and Bakken shale plays,” said Bill Maloney, president of Statoil North America. Statoil has augmented its activity by leasing 1,000 railroad cars to relieve the oil transport bottleneck from North Dakota due to insufficient pipeline capacity.
North American oil plays are renewing Statoil’s declining oil reserves in the North Sea. The following graph illustrates the fact that Norway reached peal oil production in the late 1990s with declining production ever since that time.
The presence of Statoil has caused scant notice by the mainline news media. Would this have been the case if a Chinese company were producing oil in the United States?
Conclusion: One day, the oil production curve for the Bakken reservoir will resemble the declining Norwegian oil production curve. The many Bakken oil-producing companies will then rush to the next great discovery to feed an energy gluttonous society. This way of doing business is not sustainable.
10 Comments on "Norway, Afflicted by Peak Oil, Invades the U.S. Bakken Reserves"
Newfie on Wed, 17th Oct 2012 11:32 pm
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” – Kenneth Boulding
BillT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 1:05 am
Newfie, let the Norwegians add to the fool’s money being poured into the Bakken bubble. All that oil is nothing in the long term. Maybe a few more months of driving your SUV to Walmart.
Natgas on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 2:23 am
It costs $90 / barrel of oil to drill in bakken, so its very costly exercise.
BillT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 3:58 am
Time to get back in shape as walking is closer then you think. And a bicycle will be a luxury for your grand kids.
SilentRunning on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 7:36 am
>>Conclusion: One day, the oil production curve for the Bakken reservoir will resemble the declining Norwegian oil production curve.
Yes, and it will resemble it sooner rather than later, as the individual wells deplete VERY fast with fracking. In the meantime, normal fields are continuing their depletion, so that our total production will fall off a cliff once the Bakken formation is sucked dry.
Arthur on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 10:23 am
This is the real sustainable future of Norway, becoming the battery pack of Europe, to the tune of 26 GW, that is twice the electricity generating capacity of the biggest of the small countries, Holland:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/norway-wants-to-offer-hydroelectric-resources-to-europe-a-835037.html
All they need to do is install pumps next to the generators of all the hydro plants, that supply Norway with 100% electricity. The dams and reservoirs already exist, even on Spitsbergen, near the pole. Switzerland, Austria and other mountenous areas in Italy and Spain, same story. Efficieny of storage is the highest possible: 80%. Use this storage to even out intermittent supply from solar and wind. Bye, bye fracking.
CJ on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 2:15 pm
Bakken contributes less than .7% of world daily consumption and if extracted entirely all at once would last less than 9 months. It’s the available flow of oil that’s important to the global infrastructure though, not “proven” reserves. And not to mention the detrimental environmental impact and severely diminished EROEI.
GregT on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 5:43 pm
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Albert Bartlett
Professor Emeritus of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder
Newfie on Thu, 18th Oct 2012 9:10 pm
BillT, I’m coming to Manila for some R&R this winter. I’ll buy you a drink if I can find you. We should be able to have a pretty gloomy conversation. LOL!
AA on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 6:00 pm
Silly rabbits, in the long run, solar solves everything. Just give it another decade or two for efficiencies to go from current 15% to 30%. World’s energy problems solved. Clean, cheap, desalinated water solved. Food shortage solved. Global warming solved. Militarized oil solved. Nuclear meltdowns solved. Be happy, the future is clean and bright.