Between First and Second Phase of Drilling Out the Bakken -- Kathy Neset -- 15,000 Workers in Crew Camps Across the Bakken -- Man Camps -- Bakken Rocks CookFest -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Update

Kathy Neset spoke at the Denver Bakken conference this past week, reiterating that fracking was safe. This is additional data point for Kathy Neset:

Kathy Neset has good reason to be excited about the Bakken. The geologist moved to North Dakota in 1979 and rode the boom cycle of the 1980s, building a geology and engineering company in Tioga called Neset Consulting Service. But her timing in moving here from New Jersey also meant she was part of the bust that followed.

But her company survived and now thrives - with one hundred employees and business all over the region. Her mission at the Bakken Summit was to tell these industry leaders that the fracking process used in the Bakken is completely safe for water quality in the region. It's a message she says is critical to deliver right now because of charges in the northeastern US that fracking has contaminated water supplies. She points out that the key difference is how deep the Bakken oil is - some ten thousand feet - more than five times the depth of any aquifers, meaning the facking process happens well below the water supply. Neset says the fracking process is indicative of the takeover of technology in the oil business right now.

Original Post

It's too bad the link to the McKenzie County Farmer will likely be broken over the next few months or so.

The story included a wonderful photograph of Kathy Neset, geologist and owner of Neset Consulting.
I have never met her, but I first blogged about her quite some time ago, at least back as far as the November 8, 2010. If you go to that site, I can't guarantee links from there are still intact; regional links tend to break quickly.

Recently Ms Neset spoke to attendees of the annual Bakken Rocks CookFest.

Kathy Neset, geologist and owner of Neset Consulting, has identified four phases to drilling and oil recovery. Right now, Kathy states, we are between phase one and phase two.

Kathy also states that two years ago, with the technology present then, researchers projected that the Bakken had four billion barrels of recoverable oil. Today, with drilling technology improving and with new formations being identified, oil industry experts predict there is even more oil that can be recovered than was initially estimated.

Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council brought in representatives from across the region to speak on safety, infrastructure, technology.

Ness also touched on housing, and stressed the importance of the ‘crew camps,’ stating that 15,000 workers are currently housed in crew camps all over the Bakken.