I lived OK while the "oil boom" was happening.

My dad got hurt before the slump hit and we moved back to missouri.


MY wifes family lives in TEXAS at the "perminum basin "

In the area's of midland, odessa, monahans, wink, and kermit, texas
All of you texans know that is there nothing but sand and oil wells.
I have seen these towns go downhill having bad, empty, nice houses being given away cheap.
These were towns where a one room guest house would run you $300 a month or more.Now they are being converted into sheds and kids play areas.

My question during this upcoming war is :
Why don't we open up a few of these wells and get our supply going so we won't have this crazy price increase on gas???

I know we are saving our wells for when the foreign nation's deplete their supply, but couldn't we dip into ours to keep AMERICA running strong???

I know that texas and Okla. would love to see the ghost town of the oil boom reborn

just a question and not bashing any one just wondering???

 

It's not that simple. for instance ...you just can't increase the flow by turning a valve like a residential water fawcet. Most of the proven reserves currently being produced on LAND are what they call Tertiary production...i.e....the wells will NOT produce oil\gas from their (insitu..from within the formation itself) their own initative. So , the producer has to inject chemicals under great pressure back down into the formation(s) that will bond chemically with the oil so that the oil will flow thru the perforations(cracks in the rock) back to the pipe and back up to the surface. then you have too chemically Separate the chemicals from the oil before it can be sold to a refinery and processed into gas\diesel. There are two Kinds of energy(pressure) that push oil\gas to the surface without any kind of lifting device(i.e....pump jack or downhole electric pump) and they are..(1) gas drive..natural gas contained within the formation and(2) saltwater or the ocean....Now.....in the case of saltwater drive if you allow the well to just produce with no restriction the saltwater will actually flow into and co-mingle with the oil in a much higher ratio than if you produce the oil under a controlled release. The oil has to be separated from the saltwater before the refinery will accept it for processing. So then you have to re-inject the saltwater back into what they call a saltwater Disposal well....which isn't cheap either.......Suffice it to say things get very complicated and very expensive ...very quick.....fd

 

The simplest answer to your question is that there isn't any oil left.

With the technology currently available to the oil industry only about 5-12% of the oil that is in the rock is recoverable (recovery factor, aka for every bbl of oil in the pores of the rock, we can get about 10% of it out) without using enhanced recovery techniques such as those that fatdaddy is talking about. Using the techniques fatdaddy was describing, you can get recovery rates of 25-30%, but the cost of each barrel of oil is significantly increased.

In the case of the Permian basin in Texas, much of the fields have already had enhanced recovery projects done, pressures have been depleted, and there simply is no way to get any further oil out of the ground with current technology.

Not what you wanted to hear I know, but that part of the world has been producing the majority of American oil since the 1940's.

Waxy

 

I have a better idea, open up more drilling in tree hugging california,alaska, and tap into large reserves on the east coast, off the coast of florida. As far as the PERMIAN basin in west texas, i worked there in the early 80;s and oil wont flow naturally
anymore due to resevoir depletion.At one time the permian basin provided 25% of america's oil. I think we need to deregulate the
taxes and stuff put on a gallon of gas to make it cheaper to drill in the US.Like i have said many times here, states that have oil and gas reserves and do not drill for them should have to pay the price!

 

I'm from the permian basin born in the boom of the early eighties. No there isn't a ton of oil there anymore. What we really need is to get different types of bus. there. And houses in Midland aren't getting any cheaper my parents house went frome an original value of 55 grand about 8 years ago and is now valued at over 100 grand and its a 45 year old house. do't give up on us yet were still hanging on.

 

If the price of crude were to triple what it is now, the lifting costs of wells in suspended operations may be justified economicly. Most of these are 'stripper wells', and produce much more water than oil. There are other factors to consider with those old wells too. A lot of the subsurface equipment is in poor condition. Holes in the tubing, parted rods, stuck pumps or sanded up production liners.

Scott