The Oil Drum

I recently visited BP America's tight gas facility in Wamsutter, Wyoming on a trip paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. I was the only representative of internet media on the trip. The other reporters on the trip were from AP-Cheyenne, Casper Star-Tribune, and Natural Gas Weekly. On the trip, we spent a day and a half listening to presentations and touring facilities. We also stayed overnight at the facility BP built for visiting workers.

In this post, I will tell a little about what I learned. I will also look at prospects for the future -- both in terms of being able to expand operations and threats to maintaining current production levels.

This past week, courtesy of Leanan and Gail it seems that there have been more than the usual number of stories on natural gas developments and the potentials of formations such as the Utica shale, the Haynesville shale, and the Marcellus shale. These are all relatively tight deposits that have only become economic because of increasing gas prices and advances in technology. So I thought it might of interest to explain just a little of that technology, and why it costs so much more for the horizontal well. So the post is largely going to be on horizontal wells, vertical natural fractures and slick artificial ones. To “thank” Gail I am also going to try and describe a slide on ethanol use that I saw at a talk I went to this week on Global Warming by Richard Stegemeier, a member of the NAE, and lest it has been missed I will end with a reference to the Worlds Worst Wind Farm.