How about a barrel of oil for around $16?

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by Blownhotrodder

Maddog, is the horizontal drilling required because of the terrain above the deposits or is it because of the environmental people not wanting to allow drilling above it?

Probably both. One thing that people forget is that oil fields aren't just a gigantic lake of oil sitting underground. Most of the time they are pockets of oil and are traped in the rock. New horizontal drilling techniques link multiple fields with a single well head, reducing the impact on the area as well as reducing the investment that the companies need to make in setting up rigs and drilling down again and again. Win win in my books

Originally Posted by CyberSS

So is it true or not?

There is oil there, but not as much as some would like everyone to believe.

[AngryAmish]

Just want to point this out. While not buying foreign oil might decrease the damage they can do, it won't decrease their desparation. The people that hate us over there--most hate us because we do business with the regimes that control them. The people that hate us most never see that money. The ones that have the money that hate us...well they allready have enough that the damage is done.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for drilling here. The ideal thing for me would be to limit our use of these resources through things like the Volt to the point that our domestic oil would be enough for self sufficiency.

That would be such a boost to our economy...being able to sustain two very different kinds of businesses: oil and I guess you would call it the "green industry."

Then we wouldn't need CAFE. We could have our cake and eat it too. Drive the Energizer Bunny to work, and bring out the monster on the weekend.

[Maddog78]

Originally Posted by Blownhotrodder

Maddog, is the horizontal drilling required because of the terrain above the deposits or is it because of the environmental people not wanting to allow drilling above it?

Neither, it is to increase the surface area of the layer of producing rocks to the borehole.

Think of drilling into, say a Big Mac. If you punch a bunch of holes vertically into the bun you are only exposing a small area of the meat in the borehole but if you drill down vertically into the bun and then curve the hole so that it goes along laterally (horizontal) all along the patty you have exposed a much large area of the meat in the borehole.


Kind of a weird analogy I suppose but that should help you get the general idea.

[Maddog78]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Probably both. One thing that people forget is that oil fields aren't just a gigantic lake of oil sitting underground. Most of the time they are pockets of oil and are traped in the rock. New horizontal drilling techniques link multiple fields with a single well head, reducing the impact on the area as well as reducing the investment that the companies need to make in setting up rigs and drilling down again and again. Win win in my books


There is oil there, but not as much as some would like everyone to believe.

Not even really pockets. Think of the production zone rocks as a sponge.
The oil is in all the pores of the rock. These pores in this area are very small and the oil will not flow through them easily. That is where fraccing comes in.
Fraccing is essentially applying a high pressure to these production zones that basically crack them apart and allow the oil to flow into the borehole more easily.

[Blownhotrodder]

Good analogy there. So I guess thats kinda what they are saying about developing newer technology to possibly extract more product?

[Maddog78]

Yes, although I'm not sure what the newer technology would be at this point.
We already know how to drill horizontally and frac a well so maybe just better methods of doing both.