Net importers of oil, including China, France and Poland, are studying the Bakken as a model for their own countries, which contain geologically similar deposits, the firm said.
Companies from countries as far away as Australia have interest in the Bakken, a mature oil reservoir that straddles North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan, brought back to life by drilling advancements developed in Canada and the United States.

The unconventional play has become a proving ground for advanced drilling-and-completions technology, including multi-stage hydraulic fracturing.

Producers are already deploying Bakken technology in France’s Paris basin, Australia’s Georgina basin and New Zealand’s Taranaki basin, the firm said.

Source: The Financial Post

Though OIL hasn’t said which US company the joint venture would include, the agreement will help OIL access shale gas not only around the world, but also in India.

Presently, OIL, a Navaratna company, has over 1-lakh sq kilometer of area for its exploration and production activities in India, most of it in the north-east, which accounts for its entire crude oil production and majority of gas production.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The numbers for foreign oil imports in June 2009:

- The USA imported $24.7 billions dollars, (354 million barrels of oil). This is a 13% increase from 21.6 billion spent in May 2009

- 64% of all Oil we used was imported

- The USA exported nearly $25 billion for imported oil, our worst month thus far in 2009

In the first six months of this year, the United States has imported 2.23 billion barrels of oil.

National security and domestic control and cost have all been a part of the conversation dating back to when Carter was President.
President Carter committed that we would never again import as much oil as we did in 1979.

A shift in perspective for the USA is significant. We need to use secure, clean and domestic fuel such as natural gas. Using secure,
affordable domestic fuel resources are something to build upon. It remains to be seen if Obama can do what Carter promised – I hope he can.

Post by: C. Keddy

Natural gas: looking better all the time

There are objective events in the natural gas market that could
substantially increase both the U.S.’s natural gas supply and use in
the decade ahead. Here’s the low-down:

Chief among these is an estimated U.S. natural gas reserve increase of
35 percent, due to new drilling technologies that are unlocking large
amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, according to a new study by
the Potential Gas Committee, The New York Times reported. The shale
gas, or unconventional gas, is freed in a process called ‘hydraulic
fracturing.’

If all of that extra natural gas is able to be tapped, estimated U.S.
natural gas reserves would totaled 2,074 trillion cubic feet in 2008,
up from 1,532 trillion cubic feet in 2006, when the last report was
issued, The Times reported.

Veteran energy/oil industry analyst Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy
Research Associates, told Bloomberg Radio that, “The biggest
innovation in the energy business has been unconventional natural
gas.”

A domestic energy source

Further, natural gas has what economists call a ‘source advantage’
over oil: An enormous amount of natural gas exists in the United
States. There’s no need to worry about the shifting political sands in
the Middle East, Venezuelan autocrats, or other geopolitical factors
jeopardizing the energy supply. Further, although natural gas can be
shipped by large tankers, it’s best produced regionally, or
transported by pipeline.

Why hasn’t natural gas accounted for a larger portion of the nation’s
total energy use? In cars, the ease and (before this decade) low-cost
of gasoline kept it the motor fuel of choice. In electric power
generation, intolerably dirtier coal is vastly cheaper. And up until
this decade, climate change was ignored: Sustained efforts to reduce
pollution and emissions will reduce coal’s advantage over natural gas.
In homes and businesses, particularly in the northeast U.S., oil was
the established fuel, but that’s changing: cleaner gas burners and
those aforementioned oil shocks are convincing families and businesses
to convert to natural gas, where possible.

Another area likely to reinforce the trend to natural gas and away
from oil: large vehicle fleets, particularly mass transit systems,
such as buses. Look for more systems to convert wholesale to natural
gas buses, retiring diesel fleets. Get stuck driving behind one
decades-old diesel bus and you’ll understand why it makes sense to
convert these vehicles to natural gas.

What’s prevented even more access to shale gas? Natural gas’ price.
Natural gas traded Tuesday afternoon up 14 cents to $3.39 per million
BTUs. Guy Caruso, a former administrator for the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, told The Times natural gas prices would
have to rise to $4-$6 per million BTUs to justify developing shale
beds.

Energy Analysis: Natural gas can play a large role in the nation’s
move away from oil, and from dirtier energy sources, in all zones:
residential, commercial, power generation, and transportation.

Concerning electric power, renewable sources, such as wind and solar,
continue to progress, but those two alone will not be able to displace
carbon dioxide-laden coal’s 50 percent market share at power plants:
that’s a market share that natural gas, along with nuclear power, can
substantially cut. Meanwhile, homes and businesses can continue to
switch to natural gas heat from oil, with considerable benefits to
their budgets. Natural gas as a vehicle fuel remains more-complex:
public fleet use will increase, but there’s little likelihood of
natural gas displacing gasoline as a primary civilian car fuel.

Bottom Line: It behooves the nation to use natural gas where possible,
and reduce the nation’s dependence on the dirty coal and unpredictable
oil energy sources.

SOURCE: Daily Finance

Have a look at the below video from Energy in Depth about oil and natural gas in America and see why we can not live without these fuel sources.

For a fabulous look at three versions of a 3D animation of a rig, visit http://www.energyindepth.org/rig/index.html
Move your mouse over each of the numbers to listen or read about that specific aspect of the rig and/or drilling process.

Posted by: C. Keddy

On July 8, 2008, oil prices were in the range of $140 a barrel, the
economy was showing its first cracks of weakness and both major
political parties had effectively chosen their nominees — yet no one
was talking about the economic, environmental or national security
issues that our growing addiction to foreign oil were presenting.

So I developed and introduced the Pickens plan. And then I hit the
road. In the past year, we’ve been on the road for 163 days, doing 170
events in 74 cities in 35 states, including 22 town hall meetings.

When we started, the United States was on pace to spend $700 billion a
year on foreign oil. That was in the same range as the $787 billion
stimulus package adopted in February 2009.

The difference is, even with oil now about half the price it was last
July, we are spending more than $350 billion — not just as a one-time
expenditure, but every year — to pay for imported oil that will not
create a single new job in America, won’t repair a single bridge and
won’t repave a single highway.

We are still importing nearly 70 percent of the oil we use. Much of it
comes from countries that are in unstable regions or that are
unfriendly to the United States — or both.

We can’t go on importing that much oil, no matter what the price.
Foreign oil is too dangerous and too expensive. The time to change is
now.

In July 2008, there was nothing moving on a national energy plan.
Since we’ve been promoting the Pickens plan, there has been action on
tax credits for wind and solar. We’ve got a “green bank” moving
forward. Bills have been introduced to build a 21st-century electric
transmission grid. And H.R. 1835 promises to change the way we use
natural gas as a primary transportation fuel.

We don’t use much oil to generate electricity. The vast majority of
the oil we import goes to gasoline and diesel for our 250 million cars
and light trucks and our 6.5 million heavy trucks. Only one fuel can
replace diesel for 18-wheelers: natural gas.

By providing incentives to change 350,000 heavy trucks from diesel to
natural gas, we can cut our oil imports by about 4 percent. That’s
just the beginning. Once we build momentum, manufacturing costs will
drop and replacement rates will rise.

We have plenty of natural gas. The huge amounts of natural gas
contained in the shale deposits under Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and
Appalachia have helped drive America’s natural gas reserves to more
than a century’s worth.

A recent study by the Potential Gas Committee found that there are
2,074 trillion cubic feet of domestic natural gas reserves — the
equivalent of nearly 350 billion barrels of oil, about the same as
Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.

Natural gas produces virtually no particulate emissions (compared with
diesel fumes), and the greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are
30 percent lower than gasoline.

The goal is to move cars and light trucks to battery or hydrogen as
quickly as possible. We’ll get there, but a battery will not move an
18-wheeler.

School or municipal bus fleets, refuse and recycling trucks, express
delivery and taxi fleets — indeed, any fleet that goes back to “the
barn” each night — can be refueled with natural gas, which is the most
widely distributed resource in America.

The U.S. House is considering the NAT GAS Act of 2009, which would
provide incentives to truckers, local and state governments, as well
as other public and private organizations, to immediately begin
replacing their fleets of vehicles burning dirty imported oil with
vehicles running on clean, domestic natural gas. It’s a great bill
that every elected official should support.

Source: POLITICO/ One year later, we still import too much oil

About the Potential Gas Committee

The Potential Gas Committee, an incorporated, nonprofit organization, consists of knowledgeable and highly experienced volunteer members who work in the natural gas exploration, production and transportation industries and in the field and technical services and consulting sectors. The Committee also benefits from the input of respected technical advisors and various observers from federal and state government agencies, academia, and industry and research organizations in both the United States and Canada. Although the PGC functions independently, the Potential Gas Agency at the Colorado School of Mines provides the Committee with guidance, technical assistance, training and administrative support, and assists in member recruitment and outreach. The Potential Gas Agency receives financial support from prominent E&P and gas pipeline companies and distributors, as well as industry trade and research organizations and unaffiliated individuals.

Posted by: C. Keddy