Geology News
Bakken Shale Current Events

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Northwestern North Dakota has one of the lowest population densities in the United States; however, this night lights image from NASA shows the area has hundreds of points of illumination. Many of these lights are Bakken Formation oil wells where natural gas that does not have a pipeline to market is being flared. Flaring is common practice in the oil and gas industry although many object to the practice.

With enormous oil and gas potential in dozens of shale plays, the United States could become the world’s leading oil producer by 2020.

The North Dakota Geological Survey has published a new map of kaolinite deposits. Some of these might be useful for manufacturing the proppant beads that could be used instead of frac sand in the hydraulic fracturing process. The oil and gas industry is currently using millions of pounds of proppants in every horizontal well that is drilled.

“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. Driving production gains is output from the Bakken Formation in the Williston Basin, which averaged 594 thousand bbl/d in June 2012, an increase of 85% over the June 2011 average. The Bakken now accounts for 90% of North Dakota’s total oil production.” Quoted from the Energy Information Administration.

“After decades of hydraulic fracturing-related activity there is little evidence if any that hydraulic fracturing itself has contaminated fresh groundwater. No occurrences are known where hydraulic fracturing fluids have moved upward from the zone of fracturing of a horizontal well into the fresh drinking water.” Quoted from the Association of American State Geologists statement.

Oil and gas production in North Dakota has been rising steadily as the Bakken Formation is being developed. North Dakota is now the #2 oil-producing state and production continues to rise.

Kirby Corporation has been shipping crude oil produced from the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana down the Mississippi River by barge.

The natural gas industry has prepared a movie, “Truthland”, that responds to the HBO movie “Gasland”.

The United States Geological Survey has published: “Water Quality Studied in Areas of Unconventional Oil and Gas Development, Including Areas Where Hydraulic Fracturing Techniques are Used, in the United States.”

Record amounts of oil and natural gas are being produced in North Dakota. However, about 1/3 of the natural gas is being flared because of inadequate pipelines to carry the gas to market. This article explains why the state needs more pipelines to develop the resource efficiently.

In western North Dakota a sandy rock unit known as the Pronghorn Formation, located below the Bakken Formation and above the Three Forks Formation, is yielding oil from horizontal wells.

“The chances of rogue fractures due to shale gas fracking operations extending beyond 0.6 kilometres from the injection source is a fraction of one percent, according to new research led by Durham University. The analysis is based on data from thousands of fracking operations in the USA and natural rock fractures in Europe and Africa.” Quoted from the Durham University press release.

Drilling for oil in the shale formations of Texas and North Dakota often results in the flaring of natural gas – as some of these areas are not served by natural gas pipelines. Although this practice is somewhat of an industry tradition it is drawing increasing criticism because it wastes a non-renewable energy resource, is an economic loss, produces air pollution and contributes to climate change.

Five states account for over 50% of the USA’s crude oil production with production rapidly increasing in Texas and North Dakota.

“Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination [...] many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.” Quoted from the University of Texas at Austin press release.

Oil and natural gas production in North Dakota is at all-time highs, fueled by intense drilling activity in the Bakken Formation, Three Forks Formations and other rock units.

The EIA Natural Gas Weekly Update has an interesting graph that tracks the month-by-month dry gas production growth from various shale gas fields in the United States. For example, it shows that production from the Haynesville Shale started to increase significantly in early 2009 and continued until today the Haynesville is the most prolific dry gas producer.

Even though oil production from North Dakota’s Bakken Formation has propelled the state to new production records there is still a backlog of wells to be fracked.

Many property owners are very surprised when the royalties that they receive from a natural gas well on their property decline sharply. They are learning about production decline curves.

Lynn Peterson, CEO of Kodiak Oil & Gas gives an overview of current activity in the United States portion of the Bakken Formation.