The Bakken As Laboratory: Illinois Is Invested In Fracking

Updates

October 8, 2013: update on drilling/fracking in Illinois.

Original Post 

ShaleStuff is reporting:

The oil and gas industry is drooling over carbon-rich shale formations in the Land of Lincoln. In the oil and gas industry’s quest to tap resources hidden in shale formations throughout the nation, companies involved in the fracking movement are focusing their attention on the next big hot spot, moving attention away from North Dakota and Texas and looking ahead to the future of the industry. 

That future, at this point, is seen in Illinois, where the state just instituted a set of regulations that opened doors to an industry eager to extract oil and gas from the Land of Lincoln. 

Drilling for oil and gas in Illinois is nothing new, but the technology behind fracking has opened the doors to a new source of oil and gas previously thought to be out of reach. In the 1950s and 1960s, Illinois was a hot spot for U.S. oil production, resulting in the extraction of more than 80 million barrels each year, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

I'm being told by a reader:

The company has also completed its first horizontal well in the Illinois Basin. The well was drilled to a lateral length of approximately 1,200 feet and was fracture stimulated with nine stages using our "Super Frac" completion design. The well produced at a peak 24-hour sales rate of 367 gross BOPD and a peak 30-day sales rate of 222 gross BOPD.

The company plans to drill one additional horizontal well in the Illinois Basin during 2013 as well as three additional vertical step-out wells in the same region as the horizontal wells to further delineate its acreage position.

"The company" is Rex Energy. The information is available in the company's press release dated August 6, 2013.

I like to think that fracking technology being used in Illinois was "developed" in the Bakken. Be that as it may, here's another state that is invested (literally and figuratively) in fracking.

By the way, Mike Filloon featured Rex Energy just a few weeks ago, September 4, 2013.