Tuesday 17 July 2012

Shale Exploration

Shale exploration is a subject that many people do not clearly understand. Many individuals only get to hear about the negative side of this process. However, shale oil exploration can be a huge benefit to our country and there are experts who are working every day to make improvements to the current methods of shale exploration so that it will be a cleaner and safer process for our environment. If more people become interested in the positive benefits of shale exploration, there will be a higher demand for the products offered and more oil drilling sites will be set up to extract these valuable fossil fuels from the earth, notes Alfaro Oil and Gas.

Shale oil is found in shale rocks that are found deep inside the earth. It takes a lot of powerful drilling in order to get to these rocks so that the oil may be extracted. In order to run these drills, a large amount of fresh water is used to help build up pressure and force the drills down to the rocks below. This is a major concern for many people who are worried about the large amounts of water being used. However, the shale oil that is obtained offers many benefits. It can be used as a low cost alternative fuel for our vehicles and shale rocks also give off natural gas that may be used to heat our homes or provide electricity. More access to the shale rocks mean that we will have plenty of fuel and natural gas to depend on and much lower fuel prices which will greatly help out the economy.

The Bakken Shale is one of the largest formations of shale rock in the United States. This area that stretches out through Canada, North Dakota and Montana could possibly have access to over 4 billion barrels of oil. This means that the Bakken Shale Formation is one of the largest oil discoveries in the United States since the findings of the oil fields that are located in Alaska. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the Bakken Shale is a very rich oil deposit area that has one of the largest accumulations of natural shale oil that has ever been documented. The land owners in the area have also greatly benefitted from this fact, gaining royalties from the oil that is produced on land that they own.
The most amount of oil drilling rigs that are being drilled at the moment in the Bakken Shale area is located in North Dakota and Montana. There are currently over 6,000 active oil wells in the entire Bakken Shale location with more expected to go into production as more and more oil gets extracted.

There has also been plenty of natural gas found in the Bakken Shale field. Natural gas may be used as an alternate energy source that is clean, safe and much more affordable to use. Experts claim that there is an estimated two trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the area, making the Bakken Shale Formation the provider of two natural resources for our country to use which will be very beneficial to everyone in the future.

Read the process to Finding the Right Location for Oil and Natural Gas Drilling