Oil! A Primer on Petroleum Exploration & Production

And demanding that somebody lower the price of gas!

I'm hoping that people will have got their heads out this time around, but think that you're probably right about how it will play out. I really hope not.

Just a little update from up here in the middle of no where. Came across this article tonight and thought I would share.

N.D. town sitting on potential oil jackpot

Wildcatters flocking to tiny Parshall, which is seeing economy boom


updated 3:42 p.m. CT, Sun., Nov. 9, 2008
PARSHALL, N.D. - In this tiny reservation town a hundred miles from the Canadian border where temperatures once hit 60-below zero, a Southern twang is sometimes heard over the din at the local diner and there is talk of Texas tea beneath the streets.


In April, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken. The agency said the Bakken, much of which lies two miles under the surface in western North Dakota, was the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.N.D. town sitting on potential oil jackpot - Oil & energy


Hope the new administration doesn't fall for cheap oil. We need to continue the drive to alternatives.

I don't think the Obama Administration will fall for cheap oil, since they believe the cost of oil is just a part of the problem with our current energy sources. If you believe we are contributing to (at least) global warming/climate change, you have to believe that renewable/alternative energy is still priority one. Even if the common wisdom is wrong about this, can we afford not to try? The price tag for being wrong on the other side is pretty steep.

Great Post. In regards to perrmitting, with such perverse complexity and risks, is it any wonder we obtain most of our oil overseas?

Hey thepolarcrew, have you heard any figures regarding the cost of recovery in the Bakken field? Has oil gotten too cheap to develop that field at present?

I hope so too. As Michael Bloomberg stated last week in Newsweek, "recession can't be our energy policy".

I would have to say yes, it has. Consider the tar sands of Alberta. When oil went north of $100 a barrel, almost overnight billions upon billions were pumped into it.

Now that the tar sands are bleeding red ink, just as quickly the development has been shelved

Short term, what we'll see is even *more* dependance on that cheap mid-east oil

Yeah, while demand is low, that'll work, but even countries like Iran have peaked and will not be able to maintain production levels, unless demand really tanks. I wonder how much the west Texas production will taper off now that oil is down a bit. I wonder what the "price point" is for those tired, old fields?

A quick update: My wife and I have a new (about 2 months old now) baby girl. She was born five weeks early but is doing very well now. Needless to say, I have entered the busiest chapter of my life thus far. That being said, I intend to provide the next installment in this series during the upcoming weekend. Maybe oil will be back up over $100/bbl by the time I am done with this.

Another quick note: tar sands and oil shale are but a dream at this point.

Congrats, mate!! It gets easier, fear naught! We look forward to the next installment.

Congratulations! I send my best wishes. My cats say meow

Then, we in Kalispell say, "you can't be all bad".
And sorry for taking so long to say thanks for your posts.

You are quite welcome, and I do intend to wrap this up at some point. It seems that I just rarely have much time anymore between work and the new baby.

Despite the drop in oil prices, work has become unbelievably busy as of late. I've seen quite a few coworkers laid off in the last two weeks, thankfully I managed to escape that unscathed. It means a lot more work for the rest of us, but at least we still have jobs.

I wish I was in Kalispell. Alaska is great, but I'd much sooner be in Montana.

So how is the new critter working out?

My-oh-my, isn't that the truth! Which is why reading this thread is such a revelation for me, since it is so completely out of my field of expertise.

Great work, Mr. Hanley.

Everything seems very easy if you keep repeating to yourself "it's magic!" Now try to work out the Calculus behind the engineering, and heavy drinking soon becomes an option

BTW: I would like to hear more about the new critter

One of the things that has always intrigued me is the magnitude of the twist that must occur in the drilling string when drilling at the enormous depths that appear common today (5000 ft+).
But perhaps this is avoided by somehow isolating the drilling bit mechanism from the total string length.
Anyone know?

The drill pipe is pretty heavy duty to withstand the twisting, and the drill rig operator is taught to watch the gauges to make sure the limits are not reached. Still, a string can be snapped

Its a giant PITA to try to recover a broken drill string

I can well (no pun intended!) believe that; this stuff is really heavy engineering. But the drilling string has to undergo twist, I just wondered what the magnitude of the twist is in degrees with drilling depth. Obviously, it is some function of the drilling string diameter and length, plus some other variables like temperature perhaps.

There is a pretty good summary of oil wells and production at [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well]Oil well - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame], in particular the section on well abandonment and factors affecting the economic limit of production from a well.

Yes, the string is engineered/expected to undergo a certain amount of twist/torsion. My involvement in drill ops is very limited, but if you wish I could dig up appropriate technical material