Strange, don’t you think, that it took an American to once and for all put an end to Ontario’s dominance of the federation:
A few years ago, a Billings petroleum geologist by the name of Dick Findley was working out of his basement – searching for oil in an area that had been barren for over 20 years. Things were rough and he was struggling to get by.
He even flirted with the idea of getting a second job as a restaurant cook. On a diet of nothing but Ramen noodles and hard-boiled eggs – how could you blame the guy?
But one thing kept Dick going – an unprecedented suspicion that this area, known as the Bakken Basin, contained more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran combined.
The Bakken Basin, located in Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan – was at one point coined “one of the largest disappointments in the oil industry.”
During this period, technology lacked the efficiency to make drilling worthwhile. And when oil hit all time lows in the late 90’s – the Bakken Basin was basically abandoned.
But Findley kept digging around.
And through sheer luck, he and his partner stumbled upon a porous layer of dolomite, 9000 feet below the ground of a ranch just outside Sidney, Montana.
This stumble turned out to be the largest on-shore oil discovery in decades. Little did he know, but Findley discovered enough oil to fuel the U.S. for 41 years.
Sure … it’s a promo, but the flood of oil money pouring into South Eastern Saskatchewan isn’t a fantasy.
Update: From Spike 1 in the comments:
The Bakken field can be developed because of a company and a gentleman that was from Arcola,Sask named mark Langfield.He introduced horizontal drilling to the Sask. oil patch and the rest is history.It was’nt “big oil” that brought in the Bakken,it was inovative individuals.The mud motor made it feasable.
Thanks, D. Bob,
I had no idea about that. There are so many players and ties + & – .
That damn Texas Oil managing group [ TPG], has taken over so many low ebb ventures, installed sharp CEO power and sold off later on the high end. = TG
Spike: FWIW, while no one I know wastes a lot of warm fuzzy feelings on the biggest elements of Big Oil, you might bear in mind that they were the guys who actually developed the techniques (horizontal drilling, exotic fracturing, gas injection) that are making development in the Bakken possible by smaller operators today. Developing those techniques cost astounding amounts of money, years of investment in R&D, amazing amounts of time and effort down the toilet on projects that didn’t pay out… nobody loves the big dogs, and that’s probably as it should be — they’re a pretty unlovable bunch– but if it weren’t for their tech development over the last 30 years the Bakken Field (which was discovered in the 50s and written off at the time as undevelopable with then-available technology) would still be a losing project.
Magaera – You make some good points. One example of enhanced oil recovery techniques that has added years of extra production to old wells is pumping CO2 emmisions through a high pressure line down into oil well cavities. The CO2 acts like a solvent that looses oil from formations that you otherwise would not be able to recover. In fact there is a coal-fired power plant somewhere in North Dakota that pipelines CO2 to the oilfields in the Estevan area as we speak (or write, as the case may be). Great technology but not cheap. The double whammy is the oil you’ve recovered and the CO2 stays in the ground, never getting into the atmosphere.
really a different Bob.
give me the whole explanation why a miscible fluid would stay in the ground?
gosh, some days its like reading the MSM
You mention enhanced oil recovery.
One outfit that has expertise there is ..
Cano Pete INC [Amex CFW ] $7. [$3.85 – 8.95]
They take no exploration risk. They also avoid political risk and offshore risk.
Squeezing residue oil out of older proven, [ and cheap to aquire], fields is their specialty.
They have the experts to do it and so are rated as a *Strong Buy*.
canopetro.com/
finance.aol.com/quotes/cano-petroleum-inc/cfw/ase
Seems promising, but not likely to *bloom* as strong as a *new field finder* would. = TG
You mention enhanced oil recovery.
One outfit that has expertise there is ..
Cano Pete INC [Amex CFW ] $7. [$3.85 – 8.95]
They take no exploration risk. They also avoid political risk and offshore risk.
Squeezing residue oil out of older proven, [ and cheap to aquire], fields is their specialty.
They have the experts to do it and so are rated as a *Strong Buy*.
canopetro.com/
finance.aol.com/quotes/cano-petroleum-inc/cfw/ase
Seems promising, but not likely to *bloom* as strong as a *new field finder* would. = TG
Gord: It is worth keeping in mind that oil was as low as $15/bbl (in 2007 dollars) less than 10 years ago.
…difference being we had more easily attanable oil reserves back then.
tomax,
Price of oil has little correlation to the attainability of it. The profit of the oil extracted does, simply said: selling price – cost to extract = profits
Rather, current prices are a reflection of development of 3rd world economies such as China and India and the increased usage by those countries. Market manipulation and uncertainty that threatens access to proven oil also bears a role.
consensus of the talking TV heads is that the current oil price is a -bubble-, which is going to burst pretty soon. Kinda like the uranium and gold bubbles that just get popped, but muuuuuch bigger.
Oil topped $126 on Friday, but oil company stocks declined a bit. I see stuff like that, I’m thinking the market is yelling “SELL IT! SELL IT YOU FOOLS!!!!”
jay “Rather, current prices are a reflection of development of 3rd world”
…which would lead to another economic factor, supply_vs_demand.
…supply_vs_demand
Which leads us back to supply being economically feasible because of dollar/selling price which brings us back to to Dough, a deer, a female deer…
*blink*
Umm, sorry got cross threaded there for a sec.
cal2 – well its about that time of night. You posted at about this time last night. I don’t know about anyone else blogging on this subject but I’m just a little puzzled by your comment. I have to allow that it was Friday night and just maybe you were letting loose after a hectic week. Hey we’ve all been there. I just don’t see any other explanation for the content of your post last night. Hope you slept well.