Schott OFT Market Research: Drilling Technology Unlocking Oil Reserves in U.S.

Online, July 25, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Schott OFT Market Research: Drilling Technology Unlocking Oil Reserves in U.S.

Recent assessments find recoverable oil and natural gas in the Bakken and Three Forks formations reinforces what industry has learned. New technology is unlocking vast resources unreachable even a few years ago.

The study estimated the amount of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in the fields that stretch over North and South Dakota as well as Montana at 7.4 billion barrels - more than double the estimate it made in 2008. The prior assessment did not include the Three Forks formation because no significant exploration had been done at the time.

The estimate of natural gas resources nearly tripled to 6.7 trillion cubic feet.
The Schott OFT Market Research estimates did not include resources that are already being produced or reserves that have been identified. The assessment assumed the use of technology already in use.

"These are huge resource plays and it's still very early days in applying the appropriate technology," said Geoffrey Tally, Oil Analyst at SCHOTT OFT (www.schott-oft.com) . "It will be many, many decades, really, before the ultimate answer is known."

"Some of the companies working in the basin look at things a bit differently and derive these numbers largely based on production and production curves; we base it on the geology."

"This energy renaissance and the realization of how large these resource plays can be has really incentivized investment into technology," Tally said. "So there are all kinds of research going on that we might use in fracking to the high-resolution seismic imaging that we combine with the kind of space-age technology to be able to direct the drill bit to reach resources at longer and longer intervals."

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