Hydraulic Fracturing in Alaska -- Not A Bakken Story

I normally try not to stray too far from the Bakken, but this is an interesting story.

A newly formed Texas-based independent that recently acquired 537,000 acres of state of Alaska leases on the North Slope has plans to drill into source rocks below the region's prolific producing fields and produce oil by fracturing, a company official said Nov. 24.

"This is a new play for the North Slope but the rock types are right for this to be viable and the exploitation technology can be easily transferred from the Lower 48 states," where fracturing is now widely used to produce from tight shale rocks, said Ed Duncan, president of Great Bear Petroleum LLC.

"It could be a game-changer for the North Slope," Duncan said. 

The Rigzone article continues:

Oil and gas fields on the Slope now produce from conventional reservoirs but Great Bear's plan is to drill down and produce from the source rocks, the geologic formations in which the oil and gas originally formed.

Three layers of source rocks feed most of the existing fields on the Slope, and Great Bear has access to all three of them.

"Any one of them could be viable for us but we plan to initially target the Shublik.

Very, very interesting. Stay tuned.