Bakken Technology Taken Worldwide

Elsewhere I have posted that technology developed in the Bakken is being used worldwide.

Yes, among all the other "stuff" about the Bakken, one of the little known facts is that drillers first learned how to exploit shale oil by work in the Bakken. First, they went horizontally. Later, someone came up with the idea of fracturing.

I haven't kept track of all the stories where "Bakken technology" is now being used around the world, but perhaps I should start. What better place than to start with a story about Hess, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, who drilled the Iverson well in 1951 (they started drilling in September, 1950), which started the oil industry in North Dakota.

Hess will join China's largest oil company in exploring for oil in China according to Bloomberg.

Hess and PetroChina will work with dense rock in the Daqing oil field, a formation that’s similar to the Bakken basin in North Dakota, where Hess is already exploring, according to a Hess spokesman.

Also, according to the Bloomberg story:

Hess produces more than 16,000 barrels of oil a day in the Bakken formation. The company has similar exploration operations in tight rocks in a basin near Paris and plans to start drilling in France in the first quarter of next year, according to the Hess spokesman.

Something tells me if the EPA shuts down fracturing in the US, China and France  will keep pressing forward. Sort of like what's happening n the coal energy arena and the global warming story.