For Unconventional Plays in the US, the Bakken Remains the Gold Standard

I posted this link/story at the Mississippi Lime page, but thought it interesting enough to note here:

The Mississippi Lime sprawls northward into Nebraska. 

Horizontal wells in the US Midcontinent Mississippi lime oil play aren’t as productive as those in the Williston basin Bakken, but shallower depths and cheaper drilling costs are driving increased interest in the Mississippi lime, ...

The land play has expanded to more than 17 million acres in northern Oklahoma, western Kansas, and southern Nebraska, ...

“This is a shallow carbonate play, with depths ranging from 3,000 ft to 6,000 ft, and since it’s shallower than other US unconventional plays, operators can employ less expensive, lower horsepower rigs to drill it.”

Three things:

• the story was about the Mississippi Lime, but in the very first paragraph, it is compared to the Bakken
• not as productive, not as expensive, but cost will still be a barrier (see the linked story)
• lots of water to dispose (in other stories about the Mississippi Lime) -- significantly more than the Bakken on a per well average