Operators Expand Tight Oil Plays Throughout The Rockies

摘要

The Bakken Shale in the Williston Basin was the first resource play to demonstrate the enormous oil recovery potential of unconventional geology. Rocky Mountain producers now are expanding the already huge productive extent of the world-class Bakken/Three Forks play, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates has 7.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable resources remaining. That is more than double the previous USGS estimate in 2008, which at the time was the largest resource estimate in the survey's history. After putting tight oil on the map with the Bakken, operators are proving up new Rockies tight oil plays such as the Heath and Mancos shales, while steadily unraveling the geological complexities of a possible sleeping giant to the south and west of the Bakken/Three Forks: the Nibrara.