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The Ardmore Basin is a gift that keeps on giving. And the roots of the new focus on drilling lie in Texas.
A method of extracting oil and natural gas through rock called shale was fully developed in the Barnett Shale, found in and around Fort Worth, Texas. As time has passed, that method — known as fracturing drilling — has brought to life many oil fields where production had significantly slowed. From 1998 to 2007, drilling in the Barnett Shale increased 3,000 percent. There are several shales, among them the Woodford Shale, which is in the Ardmore area, that will dwarf Barnett production.
“The shale has been cooked, it’s hardened,” Tom Dunlap, Independent Oil Producer, said. “The shale is very porous, with plates leaving a lot of space. They don’t connect.”
A frack job, or fracking, is performed when a well-bore is drilled into reservoir rock formations. Performed horizontally, the process crumbles rock every couple of 100 feet intervals and creates permeability in the cracks with sand. The process allows companies to find reservoirs of fossil fuels. In layman’s terms, it creates channels in what could be described as a street grid or spider web.
One frack job can span as many as 20 stages, and as many as 25 wells could be developed instead of one with traditional drilling. And it is the innovation that is benefiting Ardmore and the surrounding area.
“The technology has been around for a while, it just wasn’t perfected,” Bill Dolman, president of Hewitt Mineral, said. “Just the technology in horizontal drilling has a significant impact and couple that with the computer side. It runs from Springer into Johnston County and I think we can see it broadening. They are doing a big seismic in northern and western Ardmore and it depends on what comes in how far it will broaden.”
A visual indicator of increased oil drilling is the construction of the XTO office building in Springer.
XTO, an Exxon Mobil company, has jumped into the forefront of drilling in the area because of their success and activity north of Ardmore.
Dunlap indicated each well costs $6 million and XTO has eight rigs running horizontal wells. There is so much activity, Dunlap said the company could wind up with one well per 80 acres rather than the standard 640 acres. He also said oil production per well varies, but local wells could be producing $10,000 of oil a day, allowing wells to be paid off within six months.
The Ardmore Basin is a gift that keeps on giving. And the roots of the new focus on drilling lie in Texas.
A method of extracting oil and natural gas through rock called shale was fully developed in the Barnett Shale, found in and around Fort Worth, Texas. As time has passed, that method — known as fracturing drilling — has brought to life many oil fields where production had significantly slowed. From 1998 to 2007, drilling in the Barnett Shale increased 3,000 percent. There are several shales, among them the Woodford Shale, which is in the Ardmore area, that will dwarf Barnett production.
“The shale has been cooked, it’s hardened,” Tom Dunlap, Independent Oil Producer, said. “The shale is very porous, with plates leaving a lot of space. They don’t connect.”
A frack job, or fracking, is performed when a well-bore is drilled into reservoir rock formations. Performed horizontally, the process crumbles rock every couple of 100 feet intervals and creates permeability in the cracks with sand. The process allows companies to find reservoirs of fossil fuels. In layman’s terms, it creates channels in what could be described as a street grid or spider web.
One frack job can span as many as 20 stages, and as many as 25 wells could be developed instead of one with traditional drilling. And it is the innovation that is benefiting Ardmore and the surrounding area.
“The technology has been around for a while, it just wasn’t perfected,” Bill Dolman, president of Hewitt Mineral, said. “Just the technology in horizontal drilling has a significant impact and couple that with the computer side. It runs from Springer into Johnston County and I think we can see it broadening. They are doing a big seismic in northern and western Ardmore and it depends on what comes in how far it will broaden.”
A visual indicator of increased oil drilling is the construction of the XTO office building in Springer.
XTO, an Exxon Mobil company, has jumped into the forefront of drilling in the area because of their success and activity north of Ardmore.
Dunlap indicated each well costs $6 million and XTO has eight rigs running horizontal wells. There is so much activity, Dunlap said the company could wind up with one well per 80 acres rather than the standard 640 acres. He also said oil production per well varies, but local wells could be producing $10,000 of oil a day, allowing wells to be paid off within six months.
“Every rock is different,” Dunlap said. “A good well can produce for 25 to 30 years.”
Original estimates in Woodford Shale indicate only 15 to 30 percent of the oil has been retrieved Dunlap said. A technique using polymer water helped recover more oil and now fracking allows companies to continue to produce.
“There is no doubt it has changed the industry and revived the basins,” Dolman said. “You can go back, produce these fields which a lot of folks didn’t think you could produce.”
One of the reasons the Ardmore Basin is receiving so much interest is the price of oil compared to the price of natural gas. Wells produce both, but the amount of oil being drilled from the Ardmore Basin and other areas of shale drilling throughout the United States has helped shift activity from the Barnett Shale in Texas.
“There are tons of shale worldwide,” Dunlap said. “This is not a fluke, this is a worldwide phenomenon. These shales may cover as much as 70 percent of the United States.”
Which is good news for Oklahoma and its economy.
“Everyone has a benefit from it as long as there is a demand for natural gas or liquid (oil),” Dolman said. “I see it being around for several years if the state gets behind the use of natural gas vehicles. It helps, the governor being behind it, as well as several major players. It could particularly with the involvement of Chesapeake. They have approached Ford for 80,000 natural gas vehicles for their fleet. A lot of cities have also transferred to natural gas. It also has a positive effect environmentally.”
While Dunlap is in the fossil fuel industry, he sees the need for alternative forms of power. He said 90 percent of all energy to build things comes from fossil fuels compared to only 10 percent for renewable energy and feels a different approach is needed.
“We are not going to change it overnight,” Dunlap said. “My take is use it all, bring it all, because we have a long way to go.”
