Technology To Boost Tight Oil Recovery By 25% -- Wood McKenzie

Top story in Rigzone today: Bakken producers resist change.

Hess Corp and other major North Dakota oil producers told the state's top energy regulators on Tuesday that existing field practices used to prepare Bakken crude for rail transport are safe, and tighter standards could do more harm than good. The comments, at a special hearing of the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), came as federal, state and local officials grapple with how to ensure the safe transport of the state's crude oil.

The matter has come under increased scrutiny after a string of crude-by-rail explosions, including one last year in Quebec that killed 47 people. The NDIC asked companies, academics and others to testify about how regulatory changes could affect the safety of Bakken crude oil and producers' costs. 

The NDIC has not set a timeline for any decisions. Oil producers laid out in detail the methods they say make the transport of North Dakota's oil as safe as possible, and argued that stricter rules were not needed. No pipeline or rail companies signed up to testify at the hearing.

Did you expect them to say something different? To the best of my knowledge, no one has died in the US due to a Bakken crude oil derailment.

Wood McKenzie: US tight oil technology could boost output by 25%.

There continues to be great potential for surprises to the upside in production of U.S. tight oil according to Wood Mackenzie's latest integrated analysis.

"Growth in U.S. tight oil continues to impress as development technology and techniques have yet to mature beyond adolescence," said Phani Gadde, Senior North America Upstream Analyst for Wood Mackenzie.

To better illustrate, Gadde said additional volumes from Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) will come on stream after 2020, and could add 1.5 to 3 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2030, up to 25 percent more oil than is being forecasted today.

These technologies are in early test phase and not commercial yet, but indicators suggest up to a 100 percent increase in recovery rates. There are pilot tests that are underway with operators like EOG testing it out in the Eagle Ford adds Gadde.

"This is going to happen, like horizontal drilling and fracking, leading to another step-change in production technology," added Skip York Principal Analyst, Americas Downstream, Midstream & Chemicals for Wood Mackenzie.

This is going to happen way before we even get to tertiary EOR. 

This should not surprise anyone. Several Bakken operators have said EURs will easily increase by that much with new completion techniques.