The Shale Revolution, Part 1 -- March 14, 2017

It took a bit of doing, but I found the original links for this two-part article. A reader -- thank you, very much, alerted me to Part 2, but Part 1 is just as important.

This post is on Part 1 of that two-part article; this is the link to the post in which I will discuss Part 2 of that two-part article. 

So, here is the original link, with links to Part 1 and Part 2, which, I believe, will download as PDFs in both cases.

In the very first answer to the very first question in Part 1, one gets the feeling that this article is a must-read. 

The interviewee interpreted the first question to be this: "we've" been doing horizontal drilling and fracking since at least 1947. What's different this time that has made it so successful? The answer:  seismic technology.

From my August 19, 2010 post:

Largest array: North Dakota has the largest buried microseismic array in the world, Geo News, July, 2010.

Back to the recent article:

Seismic has been around in the industry since the late 1970s. It's not new, either. But the old seismic is a radically different creature from what we have today. It's like comparing a Toyota hybrid to an 18-wheel from the 1950s. Yes, technically, they're of the same technological tree, but they're so radically different. With the old seismic, you have these giant bulbs of oil-saturated rock that didn't require much of a sonar cross-section to show up when you would do seismic. The news one can pick up deposits about the size of a 500-ml water bottle.

Did I mention that North Dakota has the largest buried microseismic array in the world. Something tells me that some of the new acreage bought in the Permian for $40,000/acre does not have such an array in place, yet.

And, note: that was in 2010 that it was reported that North Dakota had the largest buried microseismic array in the world. That was seven years ago; one can imagine how much has been done since then.

Very early in the article, the interviewee says that "micro-seismic is so new it did not exist 30 months ago."

Obviously there's a disconnect. But we will press on.

Later: re-fracking -- going back to fields for the second, third, and fourth time. One can leave the micro-seismic geophones in place, to be used the next time a well is re-fracked, or a new well is fracked for the first time.

The interviewee suggests that most companies are not yet using micro-seismic technology.

So many incredible data points in the article, like this one, which I have said so many times, I have lost count:

"Rig count is now a meaningless number in shale plays in general, and even more so in shale plays using  micro-seismic technology."

I'm going to quit there for now.

The articles have been archived.