Bakken

Further proof that the Bakken Shale boom continues to grow, a proposal for an interstate oil pipeline to the Gulf Coast was announced Wednesday by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP), less than 24 hours after a similar proposal was unveiled by Enterprise Products Partners LP at a state pipeline summit (see Shale Daily, June 24).

Enbridge Energy Partners LP won North Dakota regulatory approval for its long-sought, $2.5 billion Sandpiper oil pipeline, which is designed to stretch the reach of Bakken and western Canadian oil supplies into new markets.

More than 150 local, state and federal representatives from 20 agencies and first responders conducted a tabletop crude oil rail emergency exercise in North Dakota earlier this month. It involved testing how the various segments would handle a derailment and explosion involving Bakken crude.

Waltham, MA-based Global Partners LP made public on Wednesday an agreement with a unit of Summit Midstream Partners LLC to expand its takeaway capacity for Bakken crude oil for marketing on the East and West Coasts. It is part of the $300 million in North Dakota investments planned by Summit (see Shale Daily, June 10).

Privately held, Dallas-based Summit Midstream Partners LLC on Tuesday outlined $300 million in new investments in its gathering operations related to the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota. Four new investments related to separate operating units will support expansion activities.

Eagle Ford Shale crude and condensate production in 2020 will rival Alaska’s entire North Slope field at its peak, hitting an estimated 2 million b/d, according to an analysis by Wood Mackenzie Ltd.

The question of whether the high natural gas liquids (NGL) content of Bakken Shale light crude oil in North Dakota should be addressed in efforts to beef up the safety of crude rail shipments is surfacing in various industry and government venues. Members of Congress and energy executives have been quoted on the robust new source of NGL-rich oil.

CEOs from three major Bakken formation producers on Thursday predicted that North Dakota’s rapid oil/natural gas production growth is just getting started, pointing toward 2 million b/d levels in the next few years and recovery rates in future wells approaching 40%.

There are several other plays and deeper formations yet to be tapped in the Bakken/Three Forks shale play, and the industry is still trying to determine how many total wells it will take to fully recover all the resources in the area, North Dakota’s chief oil/natural gas regulator, Lynn Helms, said Thursday during the final day of the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck.