Re: Conserving Oil is No Longer an Economic Imperative for U
Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2018, 17:56:53
Just some important information to keep in mind when talking about the eventual decline and fall of the mighty Bakken.
The estimate of original oil in place for the Bakken most quoted was that done by Leigh Price who estimated a mean OOIP of 413 billion bbls.
The USGS has estimated the amount of technically recoverable oil from the Bakken has a mean estimate of 7.4 billion bbls. That would be an ultimate recovery factor of ~1.8%
From 2008 through 2013 it is estimated that 450 million bbls had been produced from the Bakken. Given the average daily production from the Bakken there would have been an additional 1.7 billion bbls produced through to 2018. A reasonable estimate of total produced to date would thus be around 2.2 billion bbls.
What that means is that even if ultimate recovery factor is as low as what the USGS estimated (1.8%) then there is still 5.2 billion bbls yet to be produced or a little over double current production.
That being said a few years after the USGS estimate it was noted that average wells were producing at double the rate in the first year suggesting well EUR would be higher and that ultimate recovery factor would also be higher.
In 2011 a paper published in the SPE
Dechongkit, P and Prasad, 2011, M. Recovery Factor and Reserves Estimation in the Bakken Petroleum System (Analysis of the Antelope, Sanish and Parshall fields), SPE 149471
Noted mean recovery factors for the Bakken anywhere from 9% to 16%.
If we were to assume ultimate recovery factor of 6% (well below the lowest estimate of Dechongkit and Prasad, 2011) that still leaves over 20 billion bbls of oil to be produced. That number is interestingly at the low end of the estimate of ultimately recoverable reserves from the Bakken made by Continental Resources of between 20 and 40 billion bbls.
This suggests that by all accounts the Bakken is nowhere near dead.
The estimate of original oil in place for the Bakken most quoted was that done by Leigh Price who estimated a mean OOIP of 413 billion bbls.
The USGS has estimated the amount of technically recoverable oil from the Bakken has a mean estimate of 7.4 billion bbls. That would be an ultimate recovery factor of ~1.8%
From 2008 through 2013 it is estimated that 450 million bbls had been produced from the Bakken. Given the average daily production from the Bakken there would have been an additional 1.7 billion bbls produced through to 2018. A reasonable estimate of total produced to date would thus be around 2.2 billion bbls.
What that means is that even if ultimate recovery factor is as low as what the USGS estimated (1.8%) then there is still 5.2 billion bbls yet to be produced or a little over double current production.
That being said a few years after the USGS estimate it was noted that average wells were producing at double the rate in the first year suggesting well EUR would be higher and that ultimate recovery factor would also be higher.
In 2011 a paper published in the SPE
Dechongkit, P and Prasad, 2011, M. Recovery Factor and Reserves Estimation in the Bakken Petroleum System (Analysis of the Antelope, Sanish and Parshall fields), SPE 149471
Noted mean recovery factors for the Bakken anywhere from 9% to 16%.
If we were to assume ultimate recovery factor of 6% (well below the lowest estimate of Dechongkit and Prasad, 2011) that still leaves over 20 billion bbls of oil to be produced. That number is interestingly at the low end of the estimate of ultimately recoverable reserves from the Bakken made by Continental Resources of between 20 and 40 billion bbls.
This suggests that by all accounts the Bakken is nowhere near dead.