PetroBakken Completes Plan of Arrangement With TriStar
CALGARY, ALBERTA-PetroBakken Energy Ltd., Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd., and TriStar Oil & Gas Ltd. are pleased to announce the closing of the plan of arrangement whereby the companies have completed a strategic combination of TriStar and Petrobank’s Canadian Business Unit. The combination has resulted in PetroBakken, a new publicly listed company, that is a premier, Bakken-focused, light oil exploration and production company. It is anticipated that the PetroBakken shares will commence trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “PBN”, on or about October 6, 2009. Read more
Capex Budgets a Key Topic in Wall Street Transcript Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Report
The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Oil & Gas Exploration & Production issue, a report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This 72-page feature contains a roundtable forum and industry commentary through in depth interviews with CEOs from 10 firms and 2 analysts. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
Topics covered: Outlook for oil and gas prices, Possible gas oversupply situation, Nonconventional natural gas plays, Decline in Canadian gas production, Rig count and drilling companies, New oil drilling projects, Impact of inflation, Outlook for LNG imports, Possibility of future gas self-sufficiency in North America, Reserve to production ratio, Capital expenditures and free cash flow, Offshore drilling, M&A activity, Investor interest, Stock recommendations, Energy downside risks, Stock Picks, Stocks to Avoid.
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Demand fuel incentives
All of us are experiencing the huge run up in gasoline prices — currently at $4 per gallon range, going to $5 to $6 soon.
What are our leaders doing about this problem? Producing lots of hot air and no logical solutions either present or long term. We have, for instance, more oil by far than all the rest of the world. Where? Two trillion barrels in shale oil in Colorado and Wyoming, 500 billion barrels of sweet crude in Montana Bakken oil fields, allowing gas at less than $2 per gallon at the pump. And lastly, CTL (coal to fuel). We have the most coal in the world. This conversion process is already on order for China and other Asian nations via multi-billion dollar plants.
Washington thinks ethanol is the answer. It costs more in energy costs to produce than it provides in the finished product. Further, it drives up the cost of all corn food products and pollutes the soil in which it is grown. Additionally, it does not produce as much energy as comparable amounts of gasoline.
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Bakken Formation: Will it fuel Canada’s oil industry?
It’s common knowledge that there is a lot of oil in the Western part of North America, but it’s difficult and expensive to get out of the ground. What may surprise some, though, is that much of that oil is under regions that aren’t known as major oil producers —Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota and Montana.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), there may be as many as 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation – a natural geological phenomenon in the region – and estimates say that anywhere from three to 50 per cent of it is recoverable by currently available technology.
The Bakken Formation is a 350 million-year-old underground layer of rock that occurs in much of the Williston Basin, a vaguely heart-shaped warp in the otherwise flat prairies on the U.S.-Canada border. It was discovered in 1953 by a geologist named J.W. Nordquist and named after Henry Bakken, owner of the Montana farm where Nordquist first drilled.
While it was postulated as early as 1974 that the Bakken could contain vast amounts of petroleum, it wasn’t until Denver-based geologist Leigh Price undertook a field assessment for the USGS in 1995 that anybody tried to find out how much was actually there. Read more
Assessment of Undiscovered Oil Resources in the Devonian-Mississippian Bakken Formation, Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota, 2008
Abstract
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota.
Introduction
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed an assessment of the undiscovered oil and associated gas resources of the Upper Devonian–Lower Mississippian Bakken Formation in the U.S. portion of the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota and within the Williston Basin Province (Figure 1). The assessment is based on geologic elements of a total petroleum system (TPS) that include: (1) source-rock distribution, thickness, organic richness, maturation, petroleum generation, and migration; (2) reservoir-rock type (conventional or continuous), distribution, and quality; and (3) character of traps and time of formation with respect to petroleum generation and migration. Detailed framework studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry, combined with historical exploration and production analyses, were used to aid in the estimation of the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and associated gas resources of the Bakken Formation in the United States. Using this framework, the USGS defined a Bakken-Lodgepole TPS and seven assessment units (AU) within the TPS. For the Bakken Formation, the undiscovered oil and associated gas resources within six of these assessment units were quantitatively estimated A conventional AU within the Lodgepole Formation was not assessed.. Read more
U.S. Says 400-Billion Barrel Bakken Oil Field a ‘Myth’
Reports circulating on the Internet tell of an oil field spanning parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana where 400 billion barrels of oil supposedly are just waiting to be tapped. However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tells Cybercast News Service that those huge estimates are “a myth.”
A USGS report issued in April estimates that there are between 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in what is referred to as “the Bakken Formation” — well below the 400 billion barrels discussed on the Web, but up from the previous estimate of 151 million barrels made in 1995. Read more
