Can Fracking Survive at $50 a Barrel?

Isn't the US poised to become the No. 1 oil producing country in the world?

wtop.com...

www.bizvibe.com...

Looks like the US will gain if oil prices go up.

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

a reply to: watchitburn

Well, they deserve it. They are obviously a threat to me living in New Jersey. Those stupid Yemens! I hate em! That last thing I need is to see Yemen tanks rolling down my street!

originally posted by: watchitburn
I thought we were coordinating with OPEC to keep oil low to put pressure on Russia?

that's exactly what's going on.

Artificially tank oil prices and destroy the Russian, Iranian and Venezualan economies.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Until Saudi Arabia has had enough of American interference and imperialism.

The Saudis and OPEC could drive the price of a barrel over $100 overnight if they wanted to.

There will come a point though when the Saudis, the oil exec's and numerous countries have finally had enough of US meddling and destroying their revenues and profit margins.

Not long ago Trump proclaimed that HE was responsible for low oil prices. One of the few times he wasn't lying through his teeth.

And it will end. And soon. The Saudis can only survive for so long with oil prices being where they are.

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: Carcharadon

Yeah, I'm a mud engineer, people are nucking futs if they think fracking is hazardous to the environment. The wells are sealed with cemented casing and the fracking happens WAY below the water table. There's practically zero chance that fracking will result in oil or other contaminants in the water table. Naturally occurring contamination is WAY more common than anything remotely from fracking.

I went back and finished reading your whole post.

You forgot to include that fracking does not occur in the vertical. A well (west texas) is drilled to anywhere from 5000 to 9000 ft and then it is diverted from the vertical and gradually angled until is is horizontal to the surface.

You'll drill surface which is drilled with fresh water based mud, then once you get past the water table, you'll switch to a brine based mud. They do this because there are natural salt formations that you'll pass through that fresh water would washout because the salt dissolves in the fresh water, so you use a saturated brine, or a partially saturated brine to avoid washout.

At both surface and intermediate, you set casing typically and cement it in place, sealing off the hole from the formation.

Then you drill the final hole, called production, that is maybe 6-8" and you run production casing. Then the fracking tool is sent down with has directional explosive charges which are designed to pierce the rock and allow the oil in the shale to seep back into the holes that were in the fracking casing. The shale in the rock prevents the oil from going anywhere outside of the formation.


Jaden

Thanks for adding to my post brother. I just re-read it and left a few things out for sure. Bit of a rush this morning and wanted to post before I lost my train of thought because of the work day.

The outright stupidity and know it all attitude from people that have watched an extremely biased documentary or read a few articles is infuriating.

I took my girlfriend (now wife) up to Fort MacMurray(Alberta oilsands) a few years ago because I got sick of her blathering on the subject.

Showed her the operations ( which is ugly) then I took her out camping and explained to her that the beautiful, lush animal infested area we were camping in was once a massive open pit.

The next day we jumped I the river boat and I took her about 20-25 kms downstream and took her for a hike through half dead bush with not much wildlife. She wasnt impressed with the ankle deep oil/sand slurry we were walking through.

The Oilsands project is reclaiming hundreds of thousands of acres of prime forest by cleaning up the biggest natural oil spill on the planet.

And just for clarification I've worked all over the world on the drilling rigs (never offshore). Did a few years as a Directional Driller but while the money was fantastic it was too tedious and boring for me to stick with so now I'm back working as a Driller on a 3000 meter Triple. Smaller rig but faster pace which is what I prefer.

I like being out with the boys, training guys and working hard. Sitting in the shack just isnt for me. I also have more time off as a Driller than when i was doing Directional.

Drill baby Drill!!

originally posted by: buckwhizzle
This is one of my pet peeve conspiracy theories.I have no evidence,but I believe there is no such thing as peak oil.I think you just have to drill down farther,and I think the oil companies know that.Either way,if this gets proven or dis-proven,will turn out to be the big shake-up.my 2cents.

The Russians have been calling BS on the peak oil nonsense for 40 years. Predictably our media and politicians bury any and all information on it.

Their claim is that oil is Biotic and is naturally replenishing itself. I tend to believe them on this one too.

Wells that have been dry for 30 years suddenly starts to fill up again? Doesn't sound non renewable to me. If the well is played out where is the oil coming from suddenly?

If it isn't non-renewable it makes it a little tougher to justify high prices right?

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: watchitburn

Well, they deserve it. They are obviously a threat to me living in New Jersey. Those stupid Yemens! I hate em! That last thing I need is to see Yemen tanks rolling down my street!

Deserve it? No.

But I find it tough to care about 2 factions of the same cult killing each other.

It's a big fat meh.

originally posted by: Carcharadon

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Carcharadon

originally posted by: Painterz
When we were getting fracking into the UK for the first time, they told us it was worth doing if oil was $80 to $90 a barrel.

There's a lot of variables there though, I expect cost of extraction is much higher in the UK because we have lots of EU environmental protection laws that prevent the fracking companies from just wrecking the environments around where they drill and dumping poisons into the ground water.


But hey, there's a reason big oil donated money to make Brexit happen, bye bye EU environmental protections, hello cheaper fracking and polluted groundwater.

You quite obviously have no idea what fracking is, when it occurs or how it is done.

Do you ever get tired of highlighting your complete and total lack of knowledge on everything you comment on?

Since you seem to be an expert, and it's not public knowledge, what chemical mixtures are used for doing the fracking? Are the chemicals safe to drink?

I do know about it. I probably know more about fracking and drilling for oil than everyone on this site combined.

Only in very rare cases does fracking chemicals end up in the water table. Or if companys defy the regulations.

Say you drill a 3000 meter hole. To begin with you drill surface hole which is done with a drill bit 3-4 times the size of the bit you will use for the main hole. Surface hole is drilled past the water table.

Now the water table can vary greatly. I've does surface holes that were 150 meters and I've done surface holes that were over a 1000. It all depends on the formations and where you are at. If close to mountains it will be deeper, if in low lying areas it will be shallower.

Now the purpose of Surface hole is explicitly to get past the water table. For this you use a drilling mud that is water based and contains sawdust and Bentonite.

Once you drill past the water table (anywhere from 20 to 50 meters past) you stop drilling, pull the pipe out of the hole. Once that is done you run casing that is slightly smaller than the hole you just drilled (which can be anywhere from 9 3/4 inches to 12 7/8ths or even bigger but that's the average where j am). Once you've run your casing down and touched bottom you then pump cement down the well. This has 2 reasons; ) it stabilizes the bottom of the casing string and seals it off.

Once that process is done you run your pipe in the hole(different, smaller pipe. Let's say 4 1/4 inch pipe) and resume drilling with a smaller bit.

Now, this time you drill to your TD(total depth), pull out the pipe, run casing and cement it off like the surface hole casing.

Now this is where the fracking will come in. During drilling operations you are constantly taking down hole samples from the cuttings that are brought to surface by the drilling fluids (most companys in Canada use Brine these days. ) at 5/10/15 meter intervals, the interval depends wholly on what the Geologist wants and the intervals can vary depending in what zones you are going through.

These samples will tell the Geologists and the Oil Company what depths contain Oil or Gas.

In this case with a hypothetical 3000 meter well we will go with 2275 meters and 2980 meters (a long with a 500 meter surface hole) for the depth of the oil/gas zone.

So a service rig will come in run and run tools downhill to the depths that the oil company required, in this case 2980 and 2275 respectively.

The tool they run down is a massive, heavy cylinder with a number of explosive charges in it. Once they get to the required depth they set it off and it blows holes through the casing and punches into the bedrock. This allows the oil/gas to seep or hopefully gush into the casing.

Service rig pulls their equpment out installs (or re-installs the pumpjack and closes it in so that pressure readings can be taken and the well can start producing.

At no point should any fracking chemicals or waste be anywhere within 1775 meters of the water table. And if that does happen it is horrible but that is something that lays at the feet of regulatory boards and the government.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with fracking and the impact on the water table is absolutely non-existent IF all the rules and procedures are followed and things are done properly.
.

Oh man, just as well the oil industry is always totally observant of all rules and safety regulations, and never has accidents where they've cut corners to increase profitability or something.

Yeah, you're right, I totally trust big oil to do what's right all the time.

If your hole is already drilled and fracked it is ready to be pumped.

Now all oil prices will effect is drilling new wells that need to be fracked.

And even some of those can still be cost effecvive if the wells are easy to drill and frack.

originally posted by: Painterz

originally posted by: Carcharadon

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Carcharadon

originally posted by: Painterz
When we were getting fracking into the UK for the first time, they told us it was worth doing if oil was $80 to $90 a barrel.

There's a lot of variables there though, I expect cost of extraction is much higher in the UK because we have lots of EU environmental protection laws that prevent the fracking companies from just wrecking the environments around where they drill and dumping poisons into the ground water.


But hey, there's a reason big oil donated money to make Brexit happen, bye bye EU environmental protections, hello cheaper fracking and polluted groundwater.

You quite obviously have no idea what fracking is, when it occurs or how it is done.

Do you ever get tired of highlighting your complete and total lack of knowledge on everything you comment on?

Since you seem to be an expert, and it's not public knowledge, what chemical mixtures are used for doing the fracking? Are the chemicals safe to drink?

I do know about it. I probably know more about fracking and drilling for oil than everyone on this site combined.

Only in very rare cases does fracking chemicals end up in the water table. Or if companys defy the regulations.

Say you drill a 3000 meter hole. To begin with you drill surface hole which is done with a drill bit 3-4 times the size of the bit you will use for the main hole. Surface hole is drilled past the water table.

Now the water table can vary greatly. I've does surface holes that were 150 meters and I've done surface holes that were over a 1000. It all depends on the formations and where you are at. If close to mountains it will be deeper, if in low lying areas it will be shallower.

Now the purpose of Surface hole is explicitly to get past the water table. For this you use a drilling mud that is water based and contains sawdust and Bentonite.

Once you drill past the water table (anywhere from 20 to 50 meters past) you stop drilling, pull the pipe out of the hole. Once that is done you run casing that is slightly smaller than the hole you just drilled (which can be anywhere from 9 3/4 inches to 12 7/8ths or even bigger but that's the average where j am). Once you've run your casing down and touched bottom you then pump cement down the well. This has 2 reasons; ) it stabilizes the bottom of the casing string and seals it off.

Once that process is done you run your pipe in the hole(different, smaller pipe. Let's say 4 1/4 inch pipe) and resume drilling with a smaller bit.

Now, this time you drill to your TD(total depth), pull out the pipe, run casing and cement it off like the surface hole casing.

Now this is where the fracking will come in. During drilling operations you are constantly taking down hole samples from the cuttings that are brought to surface by the drilling fluids (most companys in Canada use Brine these days. ) at 5/10/15 meter intervals, the interval depends wholly on what the Geologist wants and the intervals can vary depending in what zones you are going through.

These samples will tell the Geologists and the Oil Company what depths contain Oil or Gas.

In this case with a hypothetical 3000 meter well we will go with 2275 meters and 2980 meters (a long with a 500 meter surface hole) for the depth of the oil/gas zone.

So a service rig will come in run and run tools downhill to the depths that the oil company required, in this case 2980 and 2275 respectively.

The tool they run down is a massive, heavy cylinder with a number of explosive charges in it. Once they get to the required depth they set it off and it blows holes through the casing and punches into the bedrock. This allows the oil/gas to seep or hopefully gush into the casing.

Service rig pulls their equpment out installs (or re-installs the pumpjack and closes it in so that pressure readings can be taken and the well can start producing.

At no point should any fracking chemicals or waste be anywhere within 1775 meters of the water table. And if that does happen it is horrible but that is something that lays at the feet of regulatory boards and the government.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with fracking and the impact on the water table is absolutely non-existent IF all the rules and procedures are followed and things are done properly.
.

Oh man, just as well the oil industry is always totally observant of all rules and safety regulations, and never has accidents where they've cut corners to increase profitability or something.

Yeah, you're right, I totally trust big oil to do what's right all the time.

Why would you "trust" them to do that? I sure don't that's why we have strict environmental and safety regulations here.

Stop your blathering and nonsensical posts. No one said we should just trust the oil companies to do the right thing.