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“We are producing more energy here at
home, in large part because of American
entrepreneurship and technologies like
hydraulic fracturing, directional drilling
and the innovative work happening in
the Bakken and Three Forks shale.
Attendees at the event came
from 41 U.S. states and five
Canadian provinces.
Bruce Hicks, assistant director for the
North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources’
(DMR) Oil and Gas Division, provided
a keynote address. Hicks highlighted
the DMR’s success in developing spacing
units and its push to create energy corridors
in an effort to reduce the surface footprint
of oil production. The impact of multi-well
pads has been significant, he says, adding that
larger spacing units could further reduce the
surface impacts. “We are getting more wells
drilled with fewer rigs.”
Evolution of rigs;
treating and recycling
water
John Staub, team leader for the exploration
and production team at the office of
petroleum for the United States Energy Information
Administration, also spoke about
the evolution of drilling rigs in the United
States. Staub and his team have developed
a more accurate method of tracking and
analyzing drilling rig efficiency, a method he
spoke about during a panel headlined by Jim
Sorenson, senior research manager for the
Energy & Environmental Research Center.
Sorenson spoke about the potential to use
CO 2
for enhanced oil recovery someday in
the Bakken. The panel was also headlined by
Steve Benson, director for the Department
of Petroleum Engineers at UND. Benson explained
his team’s efforts to educate the next
generation of Bakken workers and engineers.
The topic of water was a major portion of
the event. Grant Slick, principal engineer for
AE 2 S Water Solutions, joined representatives
from GE Power and Water and Halliburton,
to discuss efforts that each were working on
to handle, transfer, treat or recycle water in
the Bakken. Slick explained the engineering
firm’s efforts with operators to develop pipeline
systems for transferring fresh and produced
water to and from several wells in an
operator’s fields.
Electrical power
production
Will Gosnold, a professor at the University
of North Dakota’s Harold Hamm School
of Geology and Geological Engineering, presented
on his team’s joint efforts with Continental
Resources, Slope Electric Cooperative
and Access Energy on a project to demonstrate
electrical power production from oilfield
produced fluids. According to Gosnold,
the idea is based on geothermal heating systems.
“We take hot water or oil and run it
through a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger
then heats an organic liquid that is turned
into gas, and, to create power, the gas is run
40 The Official Publication of the North Dakota Association of Oil & Gas Producing Counties