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How fracking turned Texas into an energy superpower

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ABX:

--- Quote ---The Barnett Shale in North Texas has long played a vital role in domestic natural gas production. Beginning in 2000, the Barnett was the most productive shale gas field in the United States for nearly a decade. While recent commodity prices have slashed the number of drilling rigs in the Barnett, the region remains an important fixture in the national energy discussion.

A new report - “An Energy Revolution: 35 Years of Fracking in the Barnett Shale” - explains how the Barnett was actually where America’s rise to a global energy prominence began. .....

http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-Opinion/237266/how-fracking-turned-texas-into-an-energy-superpower



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Elderberry:
My Son worked Eagle Ford for a year. Laid off for a year. Now working Woodford in Oklahoma.

IsailedawayfromFR:

--- Quote from: AbaraXas on June 15, 2016, 12:43:13 am ---

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The USA has led the world in production a number of times since the most recent explosive drilling of the unconventionals, and for much of the 19th and 20th centuries was the top oil producer in the world.
@thackney can likely find the comprehensive list, but the ones I recall are:

1. Drake's Pennsylvania well in 1859 which touched off the Appalachian oil boom.  First successful use of a drilling rig for oil to make the first commercial oil well. That process afterwards became the normal way to extract oil.

2. 1901 Spindletop gusher by Captain Lucas which exposed the prolific nature of oil production and precipitated the many salt dome discoveries along the coast, aided by surface topography and gravity measurements.  A couple of the Seven Sisters were birthed near here, as the large-scale nature of oil production began in earnest, as Spindletop #1 produced up to 1000 times the daily production of a typical Appalachian well up to that point.

3. 1930 East Texas discovery by Dad Joiner which was the largest oil discovery in the world up to that time.  Oil was so prolific it was being sold at 10 cents per barrel.  With the advent of seismic, ushered in the discovery of many of the largest fields in the US, many in the Permian.

The unconventionals now being developed via horizontal wells and fraccing are just the latest episode.

One notices that for all four of these events, it is not a coincidence that some new technology application touched off the drilling frenzy.

Demonstrates how a rather old industry can reinvent itself time and time again with innovation.

As BTO would later sing 'You ain't seen nothin' yet'

#energy

IsailedawayfromFR:

--- Quote from: Elderberry on June 17, 2016, 07:09:35 pm ---My Son worked Eagle Ford for a year. Laid off for a year. Now working Woodford in Oklahoma.

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That is the nature of the oil industry, am afraid. Since it is based upon commodity prices, when oil prices are up, there is no better place to be to make money, but the reverse is also true.

I was laid off during my 42 year tenure as a petroleum engineer.

biff:
Fracking played a part but it is not as ground breaking new technology as talked about in the media. It has been around since the first hydraulic frac job took place in Oklahoma in 1949. There is an estimated 700,000 wells in the US that have been frac'd since.

The real hero of our oil boom was the perfection, implementation and proliferation of directional and horizontal drilling. The ability to drill horizontally multiplied the exposure to the 'pay zone' enormously.

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