Attacking The Bakken -- A Reader's Perspective

I received a very, very long note from a reader who apparently follows the Bakken even more than I do. It was an outstanding note and to give it the respect it deserves, I will post some items in separate stand-along posts.

The theme of the reader's long note was "attacking the Bakken." The reader provided numerous vignettes to support his case. I have had the same impression, but he says it much better than I could have. One of the faults of the blog is that I don't spend enough time analyzing. Most of my posts are simply aggregating news stories reported elsewhere trying to get a picture of the Bakken, each story, each post being part of the mosaic that is the Bakken.

The reader compares "attacking the Bakken" with professional sports:

Barely a decade ago George Mitchell, the "father" of fracking, ignited the oil and gas shale revolution with his pioneering work in the use of fracking and horizontal drilling.  Likewise, in the early 1960's Sid Gilman, coach of the San Diego Chargers  in the upstart American Football League became the "father" of the modern forward passing attack with John Hadl and "Bambi" - Lance Alworth.  The Chargers continued this tradition with "Air Coryell" and Dan Fouts in the early 80's, and more recently with "offensive guru" Norv Turner and Philip Rivers going deep downfield.

The "genius" Bill Walsh attacked NFL defenses with the passing of Joe Montana and Steve Young in the San Francisco 80's dynasty, and of course we have the great Al Davis with his mantra to "attack downfield" and his love of "speed at any position."

The men and women of the Bakken are attacking shale in the same spirit as American football attacks in its sport,  While the Bakken won't last forever, it will endure well into the future.

In that same vein, I've often thought of Phil Jackson, a native of Williston, North Dakota, who changed the game of basketball with his use of Tex Winter's triangle offense.

Fracking took off in the past ten years but it has been around for a long, long time. Yesterday, Rigzone reported:

With birthday cards and a social media campaign, API celebrated the 65th birthday of the technology that has spurred an energy revolution in America: hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

“Americans have long been energy pioneers, from the 1800’s when the first wells were drilled to today,” said API Director of Upstream and Industry Operations Erik Milito. “As part of that history, on March 17, 1949, we developed the technology to safely unlock shale and other tight formations, and now the U.S. is the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.”

The birthday cards feature a black and white photo of one of the world’s first commercially fractured wells located in Duncan, Oklahoma. Despite the 1940’s theme, API is commemorating the occasion on a distinctly modern platform – the internet.

Digital birthday cards will connect readers to a blog with more information on the history and success of hydraulic fracturing, which has been used on over a million wells nationwide and already accounts for the majority of U.S. natural gas production.

Later, a reader sent this quote:

While many believe fracking’s 65th birthday is this week, David Blockman writing for Forbes says that fracking was actually born two years prior to what is commonly believed.

“It is true that 65 years ago this week, Halliburton conducted the first commercially successful application of “Fracking”, as it has come to be known, in Stephens County, Oklahoma,” says Blockman, “but the process itself was actually invented and experimented with two years earlier by Stanolind Oil and Gas Company, in the Hugoton gas field in Kansas.”

Talking about the history of the word itself, which is short for hydraulic fracturing, he said that the media and environmentalists made it controversial for their own purposes.

“For the first 60 or so years of its life, the process was completely non-controversial.But then along about 2008, it began to dawn on agenda-driven media outlets and radical “green” groups looking for a new controversy to stimulate fundraising that the marriage of hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling was beginning to create an oil and gas renaissance in the U.S. Out of that realization, the anti-Fracking movement was born,” he writes.

However, in his opinion, “it’s all such a shame and a waste of time and resources, an entire movement based on fear of abundant, plentiful and affordable energy, and on the demonization of an historically safe and effectively regulated industrial process.”