[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Arraya: You make a good, but incomplete point, in that you left out the part about the rapidly evolving and developing technology, specifically for the extraction of shale. I know for a fact that BP Whiting (in Indiana) is spending $5Bn on what amounts to a brand new refinery on site.
EMRE (ExxonMobil Research & Engineering) has been instrumental in pushing new extraction engineering techniques and systems into place as well.
I’m not a rah-rah oil guy, but I do work with a lot of their engineers (on blast mitigation) and I can tell you that they’re serious about the engineering and the technology. There is huge money here, as TG pointed out, and that will drive the innovation.[/quote]
I suggest the oildrum for all things energy. They have a staff of over 20, half industry insiders and the other half academia. Also two very knowledgeable posters that will answer questions are westtexas and Rockman – both petroleum geologists with 20+ years experience.
I actually thought they were using new technology as well. More of an upgraded version of an old technology.
No., this is not really a new drilling technique. According to Wikipedia, hydraulic fracturing was first used in the United States for stimulating oil and gas wells in 1947. It was first used commercially in 1949. Directional drilling, including horizontal drilling is almost as old, but it was not widely used until down-hole motors and semicontinuous surveying became possible. The techniques have gradually been refined, as oil and gas companies have used them more and supporting technologies have been better developed.
A major reason we are using these techniques is because much of the easy-to-extract oil has already been extracted. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are more expensive, but can be used to get out oil that would be inaccessible otherwise. The hope is that oil prices will be high enough to make these techniques profitable.
