Bakken Formation - Fracking

[Oscar]

Saskatchewan may be sitting on oil bonanza

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/
story.html?id=f54f40ca-3caf-43ad-aee1-c300ab24830e

Saskatchewan could be sitting on 25 billion to 100 billion barrels of sweet, light crude oil in the Bakken formation in the southeast part of the province, according to industry and government estimates.

By The Edmonton JournalDecember 10, 2007

Saskatchewan could be sitting on 25 billion to 100 billion barrels of sweet, light crude oil in the Bakken formation in the southeast part of the province, according to industry and government estimates.

By comparison, the heavy oil resource in west-central Saskatchewan, which is considered to have the greatest potential for future production, is estimated at 25 billion barrels of oil in place.

The huge potential of the Bakken play has industry and government officials gushing with superlatives.

"We're excited about it,'' said Ed Dancsok of Saskatchewan Energy and Resources. "It's probably the biggest oil find in Saskatchewan since the 1950s."

"The Bakken is the hottest play in Western Canada,'' said Trent Stangl, manager of marketing and investor relations for Crescent Point Energy Trust of Calgary, one of the top three players in the Bakken in Saskatchewan.

Gregg Smith, vice-president of Canadian operations for Petrobank Energy and Resources, another Calgary company that has a large land position in southeastern Sask., goes further. "It's fair to say, the Bakken play is the hottest play in North America,'' he said.

What has government and industry observers so excited is the sheer magnitude of the Bakken formation, which is found in the Williston Basin underlying much of North Dakota, eastern Montana, southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba.

The Bakken is a geological formation of siltstone and sandstone about 300 metres below the Mississippian formation, where most Saskatchewan light oil production comes from. Bakken wells tend to be highly productive (200 barrels a day or more), producing sweet, light crude oil with 41 degree gravity, basically the highest grade of crude oil you can find anywhere.

While relatively new in Canada, Bakken exploration has been underway in the U.S. since 2000 and has increased dramatically in recent years. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bakken formation could contain a mind-boggling 413 billion barrels of oil in place.

Exactly how much of that Bakken oil in place is in Sask. is a matter of some conjecture.

Fifteen years ago, the then-department of energy and mines estimated there were roughly 100 billion barrels of oil in place in the Bakken formation throughout the entire Williston Basin.

Dancsok, who co-authored the 1991 study, said the prevailing view in the geoscience community at the time was that "the potential of the Bakken was immense, but the price of oil in 1991 was not such that people wanted to risk (exploration and development dollars).''

More recently, a North Dakota geologist reported that the Bakken formation could contain 200 billion barrels in the Williston Basin. Compared with the USGS report estimating more than 400 billion barrels in the Bakken, the earlier estimates of 100 billion to 200 billion barrels are seen as conservative.

Dancsok estimated roughly 25 per cent of the Williston Basin, which covers some 518,000 square kilometres, is located in Saskatchewan. Based on that simple arithmetic, the estimate of Bakken oil in the province could range from 25 billion barrels to 100 billion barrels of oil in place.

But how much of the Bakken oil in place is recoverable using today's technology? Based on conventional production methods, perhaps only 10 per cent. But horizontal drilling, combined with a new production technique, known as hydraulic fracturing, has increased recovery rates by another five per cent.

"What's cracked the nut on this play is the new fracturing system that they're using,'' Cody Kwong, a geologist with First Energy Capital in Calgary, said. In layman's terms, hydraulic fracturing involves injecting a slurry of water, chemicals and sand into the formation, breaking or fracturing the reservoir and increasing the permeability of the reservoir. "You get further access to the reservoir by getting these fractures that give you more pathways to the wellbore.''

Smith said Petrobank, which pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing in the Bakken play in Sask., has seen production from its Bakken wells increase to 300 barrels per day from 200 barrels per day, in some cases. "We pioneered a different way to 'frac' our Bakken wells that really resulted in less water being produced and more oil being produced.''

MORE:

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/
story.html?id=f54f40ca-3caf-43ad-aee1-c300ab24830e

[Oscar]

Horizontal Drilling Technology And Bakken Oil in Canada Update

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/horizo ... y-and.html

October 13, 2009

Multi-frac horizontals are a "game changer" for oil and gas drilling because of their potential to increase recoveries from established plays.
The technology is unlocking tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day in Canada and hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil in the USA and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

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Multi-stage fracturing of horizontal wells in the Bakken

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/02/
multi-stage-fracturing-of-horizontal_29.html

February 29, 2008

Packers Plus Energy Services Inc., Calgary-based company, says its unique technology can deliver precisely-controlled fracs along a horizontal wellbore at an affordable price.

"Without our StackFrac system, the Bakken formation in southeastern Saskatchewan would still be uneconomic for the most part," says Dan Themig, president of the seven-year-old private firm.
Producers had already attempted straightforward stimulation of open hole horizontal well bores, sometimes dubbed "Hail Mary" fracs. That tactic sometimes worked but more often the formation would crack mainly at its weakest point rather than along the entire wellbore. Overstimulation at one point not only limits the increase in oil or gas production but sometimes triggers water incursion into the well.

[Oscar]

PetroBakken

http://www.canadianbusinessjournal.ca/brochures/Jan_10/
PetroBakken/file.pdf

The Canadian Business Journal 33
www.petrobakken.com

How PetroBakken took a chance with an upstart technology and unlocked the Bakken
By Anna Guy JANUARY 2010 •
The Bakken formation in south-eastern Saskatchewan, Canada, is fast becoming a major hotspot for onshore oil. Lesser known than the celebrated oilsands, the Bakken formation is a 350 million-year-old underground layer of rock that spans Montana and North Dakota to the south, and southeast Saskatchewan to the north. Discovered in the 1950’s, its vast reserves of petroleum were only recently accessible through technology.
As early as 1974, it was postulated that the Bakken could contain vast amounts of oil, but it was a 1995 field assessment for the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) that said there may be as many as 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation. Compare this with the 125 billion barrels at the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia and 7.8 billion barrels at Alberta’s Pembina Cardium, and the significance of the Bakken becomes clearer.
“We see a great expansion of our oil industry in areas that we have previously had limited production,” says Dancsok.
“The Bakken is the key which may unlock the entire province.”

MORE:
http://www.canadianbusinessjournal.ca/brochures/Jan_10/
PetroBakken/file.pdf