Read Online Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future by Richard Heinberg - Free Book Online

gas for as far as the eye can see.
    Tight Oil by the Numbers
    Sometimes the shale rocks that yield natural gas to hydraulic fracturing also (or instead) contain oil. But calling this resource “shale oil” creates confusion because the term is so similar to “oil shale”—a phrase customarily applied to an entirely different resource in the western part of the United States. (We’ll discuss the potential of oil shale in Chapter 6.) In order to avoid this confusion, geologists usually call crude oil that’s present in shale (or similar rock) “tight oil.” Conventional, commercially accessible oil is typically found in porous rock that is topped by an impermeable “cap rock” that keeps the oil from migrating to the surface and oxidizing. But that’s typically not where the oil formed; it migrated there from “source rock,” usually shale, which formed slowly from sediments on ancient seabeds. Tight oil is petroleum that remained in this shale source rock, kept there by unusually tight pore spaces and a lack of pathways between pores. As with shale gas, tight oil presents a challenge for drillers—one that has been partially overcome by the use of new technology.
    Most production of tight oil (sometimes called “light tight oil,” or LTE) in the United States is occurring in two formations—the Bakken play in Montana and North Dakota (also in Saskatchewan, Canada), and the Eagle Ford play in south Texas.

    Figure 17. Distribution and Peak Daily Production of Wells in the Bakken Tight Oil Play.
    Source: Data from DI Desktop/HPDI, compiled by J. David Hughes, September 2012.
    Geologist J. W. Nordquist first described the Bakken formation in the Williston Basin in 1953, following an initial oil discovery at the Clarence Iverson farm in North Dakota in 1951. In 2000, Lyco Energy drilled the first horizontal pilot well into the Bakken; five years later EOG Resources demonstrated that horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing could recover significant oil from the play. Commercial production using modern fracking technology began in 2008, and by the end of 2010, oil production rates had reached 458,000 barrels per day, outstripping the industry’s capacity to ship oil out of the region.
    Repeatedly throughout the past several decades, geologists have sought to estimate the total oil endowment of the Bakken formation. A 2008 report issued by the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources suggested that the North Dakota portion of the Bakken contains 167 billion barrels of oil—which, if it represented oil reserves, would put North Dakota ahead of Iraq in terms of oil endowment. However, the percentage of this oil that can practically be extracted is highly debatable, with estimates as low as 1%. Companies operating in the Bakken include Anglo Canadian, Concho, Abraxas, EOG Resources, Continental, Whiting, Marathon, QEP, Brigham, Hess, Samson, and Statoil. As of mid-2012 there were about 4,600 wells producing a total of 570,000 barrels per day. While overall production from the Bakken has grown rapidly in recent years, the Montana portion of the play is already in decline. We will explore the overall potential for this play in the next chapter.
    A New York Times Magazine article (“North Dakota Went Boom” by Chip Brown, January 31, 2013) chronicled the economic and social impact on life in North Dakota as a result of the leasing and drilling frenzy in the Bakken:
    It has minted millionaires, paid off mortgages, created businesses; it has raised rents, stressed roads, vexed planners and overwhelmed schools; it has polluted streams, spoiled fields and boosted crime. It has confounded kids running lemonade stands: 50 cents a cup but your customer has only hundreds in his payday wallet. Oil has financed multimillion-dollar recreation centers and new hospital wings. It has fitted highways with passing lanes and rumble strips. It has forced McDonald’s to offer bonuses and brought job seekers from all