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79-519: Besides the Bakken Formation being a widespread prolific source rock for oil when thermally mature, significant producible oil reserves exist within the rock unit itself. Oil was first discovered within the Bakken in 1951, but past efforts to produce it have faced technical difficulties. In April 2008, a USGS report estimated the amount of recoverable oil using technology readily available at

158-399: A better estimation can be obtained by examining the lithology of the particles. Porosity can be proportional to hydraulic conductivity ; for two similar sandy aquifers , the one with a higher porosity will typically have a higher hydraulic conductivity (more open area for the flow of water), but there are many complications to this relationship. The principal complication is that there

237-809: A camp outside of Williston was shut down after allowing sewage to discharge openly over the property. Source rock In petroleum geology , source rock is rock which has generated hydrocarbons or which could generate hydrocarbons. Source rocks are one of the necessary elements of a working petroleum system . They are organic-rich sediments that may have been deposited in a variety of environments including deep water marine , lacustrine and deltaic . Oil shale can be regarded as an organic-rich but immature source rock from which little or no oil has been generated and expelled. Subsurface source rock mapping methodologies make it possible to identify likely zones of petroleum occurrence in sedimentary basins as well as shale gas plays. Source rocks are classified from

316-405: A few years earlier. The Mondak Field to the southeast of Elm Coulee extended the productive pinchout trend into North Dakota. Elm Coulee was key to later Bakken development because it combined horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing, and targeted the dolomitic middle Bakken member rather than the shales of the upper or lower Bakken. New interest developed in 2006 when EOG Resources reported that

395-648: A large number of wells drilled. While these technologies have been consistently in use since the 1980s, the Bakken trend is the place where they are being most heavily used: 150 active rigs in the play and a rate of 1,800 added wells per year. An April 2013 estimate by the USGS projects that 7.4 billion barrels (1.18 billion cubic metres) of undiscovered oil can be recovered from the Bakken and Three Forks formations and 6.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 530 million barrels of natural gas liquids using current technology. The Energy Information Administration (EIA),

474-477: A mean of 3.65 billion. Later that month, the state of North Dakota's report estimated that of the 167 billion barrels (26.6 billion cubic metres) of oil in place in the North Dakota portion of the Bakken, 2.1 billion barrels (330 million cubic metres) were technically recoverable with current technology. In 2011, a senior manager at Continental Resources Inc. (CLR) declared that the "Bakken play in

553-461: A perception that men will not be prosecuted for assaulting them”. Author Lily Cohen also writes about this issue saying that “Native women face increased levels of sexual assault, sex trafficking, and other gender based violence when resource extraction projects are located near Native communities”. The trauma that is caused by the increased violent crime stemming from these man camps can also remain within these communities for generations. There has been

632-512: A portion of the Bakken region, found that the practices in the region can result in many environmental harms. The fracking which occurs can result in the harm and displacement of vital habitat for native plants and animals. Fracking in the region can also result in ground and water pollution from spilled oil and fracking fluids. In just one week, more than 60 spills were reported in North Dakota's Bakken oil and gas fields in 2024. Man camps that house workers also contribute to pollution. In one instance,

711-475: A recent effort from leaders in man camps to write tighter rules for residents in these facilities to help prevent these issues. There are many negative consequences to the environment that come from activity on the Bakken oil formation, The Bakken Formation is considered a “carbon bomb” by PBS podcast host Ethan Brown, or a fossil fuel initiative projected to release more than one billion tons of carbon throughout its operational lifespan. The Bakken oil and gas field

790-474: A record high of 71,000 barrels per day (11,000 m/d). The Bakken Formation also produces in Manitoba, yielding 42.1 thousand barrels per day of crude oil in 2020. [i] Updated the statistic to be more current. Most Bakken wells are drilled and completed in the middle member. Many wells are now being drilled and completed in the basal Sanish/Pronghorn member and in the underlying Three Forks Formation, which

869-438: A report issued by the state of North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources estimated that the North Dakota portion of the Bakken contained 167 billion barrels (26.6 billion cubic metres) of oil in place. Although the amount of oil in place is a very large oil resource, the percentage that can be extracted with current technology is another matter. Estimates of the Bakken's recovery factor have ranged from as low as 1%—because

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948-444: A single well it had drilled into an oil-rich layer of shale near Parshall, North Dakota , was anticipated to produce 700,000 barrels (110,000 m) of oil. At Parshall, the abrupt eastern limit of the field is formed by the extent of thermally mature Bakken shale; shale farther east is thermally immature, and unproductive. The Parshall Oil Field discovery, combined with other factors, including an oil-drilling tax break enacted by

1027-702: A slow decline in daily production per well that began in 2013, down to 115 barrels in mid-2015. The peak production value reported by the EIA is about 9% larger. The EIA also reports that the Bakken rig count dropped about 60% over the year ending in October 2015 in response to the collapsing price of oil , while the new-well (initial) oil production per rig increased by 40%, both apparently plateauing at that time. (The production rate from fracked wells decreases more rapidly than from conventional wells drilled in more permeable rock.) Several public companies had drilling rigs in

1106-487: A time of shallower, well-oxygenated water. The middle dolomite member is the principal oil reservoir, roughly two miles (3 km) below the surface. Both the upper and lower shale members are organic-rich marine shale. The Bakken Formation has emerged in recent years as one of the most important sources of new oil production in the United States. Most Bakken drilling and production has been in North Dakota, although

1185-428: Is a fraction between 0 and 1, typically ranging from less than 0.005 for solid granite to more than 0.5 for peat and clay . The porosity of a rock, or sedimentary layer, is an important consideration when attempting to evaluate the potential volume of water or hydrocarbons it may contain. Sedimentary porosity is a complicated function of many factors, including but not limited to: rate of burial, depth of burial,

1264-455: Is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material , and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure the "accessible void", the total amount of void space accessible from the surface (cf. closed-cell foam ). There are many ways to test porosity in a substance or part, such as industrial CT scanning . The term porosity

1343-531: Is also a lack of substance-abuse treatment centers in the area to help treat the rising number of people struggling with addiction. This increase in violent crime also disproportionately harms women, with higher rates of sexual assault and rape. Between 2006 and 2012 women saw a 54% surge in the incidence of unlawful sexual contact, primarily driven by an increase in statutory rape reports. This increase in violent crime particularly impacted minority and indigenous women as overall violence rates amongst these groups were

1422-490: Is also responsible for the leaking of large amounts of methane. Both CO2 and methane are amongst some of the most prominent and harmful gasses that contribute to air pollution. There are also a host of other environmental impacts coming out of the region including disruption of natural ecosystems and pollution. An article by the National Park Service concerning Theodore Roosevelt National Park , which takes up

1501-453: Is an associated concept. The ratio of holes to solid that the wind "sees". Aerodynamic porosity is less than visual porosity, by an amount that depends on the constriction of holes. Casting porosity is a consequence of one or more of the following: gasification of contaminants at molten-metal temperatures; shrinkage that takes place as molten metal solidifies; and unexpected or uncontrolled changes in temperature or humidity. While porosity

1580-425: Is between 1.5 and 1.7 g/cm . This calculates to a porosity between 0.43 and 0.36. Typical bulk density of clay soil is between 1.1 and 1.3 g/cm . This calculates to a porosity between 0.58 and 0.51. This seems counterintuitive because clay soils are termed heavy , implying lower porosity. Heavy apparently refers to a gravitational moisture content effect in combination with terminology that harkens back to

1659-469: Is complex. Traditional models regard porosity as continuous. This fails to account for anomalous features and produces only approximate results. Furthermore, it cannot help model the influence of environmental factors which affect pore geometry. A number of more complex models have been proposed, including fractals , bubble theory, cracking theory, Boolean grain process, packed sphere, and numerous other models. The characterisation of pore space in soil

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1738-427: Is feasible by integrating the existing source rock data into seismic depth maps that structurally follow the source horizon(s). It has been statistically observed at a world scale that zones of high success ratios in finding oil and gas generally correlate in most basin types (such as intracratonic or rift basins ) with the mapped "generative depressions". Cases of long distance oil migration into shallow traps away from

1817-459: Is inherent in die casting manufacturing, its presence may lead to component failure where pressure integrity is a critical characteristic. Porosity may take on several forms from interconnected micro-porosity, folds, and inclusions to macro porosity visible on the part surface. The end result of porosity is the creation of a leak path through the walls of a casting that prevents the part from holding pressure. Porosity may also lead to out-gassing during

1896-402: Is more easily measured through the volume of gas or liquid that can flow into the rock, whereas fluids cannot access unconnected pores. Porosity is the ratio of pore volume to its total volume. Porosity is controlled by: rock type, pore distribution, cementation, diagenetic history and composition. Porosity is not controlled by grain size, as the volume of between-grain space is related only to

1975-478: Is not a direct proportionality between porosity and hydraulic conductivity but rather an inferred proportionality. There is a clear proportionality between pore throat radii and hydraulic conductivity. Also, there tends to be a proportionality between pore throat radii and pore volume. If the proportionality between pore throat radii and porosity exists then a proportionality between porosity and hydraulic conductivity may exist. However, as grain size or sorting decreases

2054-406: Is only one refinery in the area. As a result, the oil and gas prices received have been much lower than the normal North American index prices of West Texas Intermediate for oil and Henry Hub for gas. The shortage of pipeline capacity has caused some producers to ship oil out of the area by more expensive methods of truck or railroad. It was Bakken crude oil carried by train that caught fire in

2133-455: Is the initial porosity of the sediment at the surface of soil (before its burial), and k {\displaystyle k} is the compaction coefficient (m ). The letter e {\displaystyle e} with a negative exponent denotes the decreasing exponential function. The porosity of the sediment exponentially decreases with depth, as a function of its compaction. A value for porosity can alternatively be calculated from

2212-418: Is used in multiple fields including pharmaceutics , ceramics , metallurgy , materials , manufacturing , petrophysics , hydrology , earth sciences , soil mechanics , rock mechanics , and engineering . In gas-liquid two-phase flow , the void fraction is defined as the fraction of the flow-channel volume that is occupied by the gas phase or, alternatively, as the fraction of the cross-sectional area of

2291-632: The American Midwest . Unlike the rejected cross-border Keystone XL Pipeline , the pipeline project to carry American crude across the border was approved by the US government without controversy. Absent the infrastructure to produce and export natural gas , it is merely flared on the spot; a 2013 study estimated the cost at $ 100 million per month. The North Dakota oil boom has given those who own mineral rights large incomes from lease bonuses and royalties. The boom has reduced unemployment and given

2370-626: The bulk density ρ bulk {\displaystyle \rho _{\text{bulk}}} , saturating fluid density ρ fluid {\displaystyle \rho _{\text{fluid}}} and particle density ρ particle {\displaystyle \rho _{\text{particle}}} : If the void space is filled with air, the following simpler form may be used: A mean normal particle density can be taken as approximately 2.65 g/cm ( silica , siliceous sediments or aggregates), or 2.70 g/cm ( calcite , carbonate sediments or aggregates), although

2449-789: The oil well . Hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S, also known as sour gas ) is found to varying degrees in crude petroleum . The gas is flammable, corrosive, poisonous, and explosive; thus, oil with higher levels of H 2 S presents challenges such as "health and environmental risks, corrosion of wellbore, added expense with regard to materials handling and pipeline equipment, and additional refinement requirements." Bakken oil has historically been characterized as "sweet", meaning that it has little or no H 2 S. However, increased concentration of H 2 S over time has been observed in some Bakken wells, believed to be due to certain completion practices, such as hydraulic fracturing into neighboring formations, that may contain high levels of H 2 S. Some other formations in

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2528-529: The "generative depressions" are usually found in foreland basins . Besides pointing to zones of high petroleum potential within a sedimentary basin, subsurface mapping of a source rock's degree of thermal maturity is also the basic tool to identify and broadly delineate shale gas plays. Certain source rocks are referred to as "world class", meaning that they are not only of very high quality but are also thick and of wide geographical distribution. Examples include: Porosity Porosity or void fraction

2607-412: The Bakken an excellent candidate for horizontal drilling techniques in which a well is drilled horizontally along bedding planes, rather than vertically through them. In this way, a borehole can contact many thousands of feet of oil reservoir rock in a unit with a maximum thickness of only about 140 feet (40 m). Production is also enhanced by artificially fracturing the rock, to allow oil to seep to

2686-412: The Bakken came in 1995, when geologist Dick Findley realized that the dolomitic Middle member of the Bakken Formation was a better exploration target than the upper or lower members. Although the middle member held less oil in place than the organic shales both above and below, it was able to maintain open fractures more than the shales. Horizontal wells in the middle Bakken were used successfully to develop

2765-522: The Bakken shale has generally low porosity and low permeability, making the oil difficult to extract—to Leigh Price's estimate of 50% recoverable. Reports issued by both the USGS and the state of North Dakota in April 2013 estimated up to 7.4 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in the Dakotas and Montana, using current technology. The flurry of drilling activity in

2844-399: The Bakken shale ranged from 271 to 503 billion barrels (43.1 to 80.0 billion cubic metres), with a mean of 413 billion barrels (65.7 billion cubic metres). While others before him had begun to realize that the oil generated by the Bakken shales had remained within the Bakken, it was Price, who had spent much of his career studying the Bakken, who particularly stressed this point. If he

2923-531: The Bakken trend. These include EOG Resources , Continental Resources , Chord Energy , Marathon Oil Corporation , Diamondback Energy , and Hess Corporation . In Canada, operators include Ridgeback Resources , and Crescent Point Energy . LIG Assets, Inc. elected to participate in a 10% industry position in a group of oil leases located in the Bakken formation in North Dakota. The leases comprise approximately 1,280 acres (520 ha) in McKenzie County ,

3002-486: The Bakken was mostly responsible for the decrease in US oil imports since 2005. The US imported 52% of its oil in 2011, down from 65% in 2005. Hydraulically fractured wells in the Bakken, Eagle Ford , and other tight oil targets enabled US crude oil production to rise in September 2013 to the highest output since 1989. A research paper by USGS geochemist Leigh Price in 1999 estimated the total amount of oil contained in

3081-421: The Bakken, coupled with the wide range of estimates of in-place and recoverable oil, led North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan to ask the USGS to conduct a study of the Bakken's potentially recoverable oil. In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels (480 to 680 million cubic metres), with

3160-613: The Elm Coulee Field in Montana. The 2000 discovery of the Elm Coulee Oil Field , Richland County, Montana , where production is expected to ultimately total 270 million barrels (43,000,000 m), drew a great deal of attention to the trend where oil was trapped along the Bakken pinchout . In 2007, production from Elm Coulee averaged 53,000 barrels per day (8,400 m/d)—more than the entire state of Montana

3239-733: The Fort Berthold Reservation, created in 1870. Fort Berthold is home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation- also known as MHA Nation or the Three Affiliated Tribes. Fort Berthold was once home primarily to farmers and traders until the construction of the Garrison Dam in 1947 wiped out much of the farmland and forced a majority of the Three Affiliated Tribes to relocate to higher ground on the prairie. According to Lower Brule Sioux historian Nick Estes,

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3318-479: The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources treats as part of the Bakken for oil production statistical purposes. Porosities in the Bakken averages about 5%, and permeabilities are very low, averaging 0.04 millidarcys —much lower than typical oil reservoirs, in today's terms an unconventional light tight oil play. However, the presence of vertical to sub-vertical natural fractures makes

3397-483: The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, daily oil production per well reached a plateau at 145 barrels in June 2010. Although the number of wells tripled between June 2010 and December 2012, oil production per well remained essentially unchanged. However, as more wells were brought online, total oil produced continued to increase until it peaked in mid-2015 at 1.15 million barrels per day. The increase ended because of

3476-687: The Williston Basin have always produced "sour" (high H 2 S) crude oil, and because sweet oil brings a higher price, oil transporters suspect that some sour oil is being blended into sweet Bakken crude. H 2 S in crude oil is being investigated as a possible cause of the explosive nature of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. Pipeline transport operator Enbridge no longer accepts crude with more than five parts per million H 2 S, citing safety concerns. Increased US oil production from hydraulically fractured tight oil wells in formations such as

3555-526: The Williston basin could become the world's largest discovery in the last 30–40 years," as ultimate recovery from the overall play is now estimated at 24 billion barrels (3.8 billion cubic metres). (Note: the recent discoveries off the coast of Brazil should be greater, with proven reserves of 30 billion, and a potential for 50 to 80.) This considerable increase has been made possible by the combined use of horizontal drilling , hydraulic fracturing , and

3634-474: The area. Increasing economic prosperity has also brought increasing crime and social problems. Research has found an increase in violent crime in areas surrounding the Bakken oil region, primarily among indigenous communities. A study by the University of Colorado Boulder showed that between 2006 and 2012, the rate of violent victimization increased 70% in the Bakken oil region. During this same time, there

3713-509: The blame can be assigned to the rig subcontractor. Statutes have been established to prevent this in four other oil-producing states: Texas , Louisiana , New Mexico and Wyoming . There have also been reports of lack of proper safety precautions in the Bakken oil region. For example, Dustin Payne was an employee in the Bakken region who died after an oil tank he was welding exploded. Payne had previously expressed concerned for his safety. Before

3792-503: The channel that is occupied by the gas phase. Void fraction usually varies from location to location in the flow channel (depending on the two-phase flow pattern). It fluctuates with time and its value is usually time averaged. In separated (i.e., non- homogeneous ) flow, it is related to volumetric flow rates of the gas and the liquid phase, and to the ratio of the velocity of the two phases (called slip ratio ). Used in geology , hydrogeology , soil science , and building science ,

3871-435: The crews. In 2015, the oil boom in North Dakota was reported to have brought with it the highest worker fatality rate in the United States. It was reported that on average, an oil worker died in the Bakken every six weeks. One company offered workers daily bonuses of $ 150 for drilling quickly, while those who proceeded more slowly, exercising caution, were offered only $ 40 a day. The well owner may avoid liability for accidents if

3950-476: The dam inundated the Fort Berthold Reservation and took 152,360 acres of their land, a loss of a quarter of the reservation's entire land base. The oil boom holds the potential to generate hundreds of million dollars for the tribes, offering the change to construct new roads, schools, and essential housing and healthcare facilities, but it also comes with a steep social cost with an increase in violence against Native populations. A major advance in extracting oil from

4029-572: The deadly 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec . Part of the disaster at Lac-Mégantic has been blamed on the fact that much of the highly volatile Bakken oil was mislabeled as lower risk oil and was being shipped in substandard tank cars not designed to contain it. Because of the shortage of pipeline capacity out of North Dakota, over half of its production is sent to market by rail. BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway reported to Minnesota officials that about 50 Bakken oil trains pass through

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4108-546: The effects of internal source rock over-pressuring caused by hydrocarbon generation as well as by compaction . Once released into porous and permeable carrier beds or into faults planes , oil and gas then move upwards towards the surface in an overall buoyancy-driven process known as secondary migration . Areas underlain by thermally mature generative source rocks in a sedimentary basin are called generative basins or depressions or else hydrocarbon kitchens . Mapping those regional oil and gas generative "hydrocarbon kitchens"

4187-456: The end of 2007 within the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels (680,000,000 m), with a mean of 3.65 billion. Simultaneously the state of North Dakota released a report with a lower estimate of 2.1 billion barrels (330,000,000 m) of technically recoverable oil in the Bakken. Various other estimates place the total reserves, recoverable and non-recoverable with today's technology, at up to 24 billion barrels. A recent estimate places

4266-415: The figure at 18 billion barrels. In April 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey released a new figure for expected ultimate recovery of 7.4 billion barrels of oil. The application of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling technologies has caused a boom in Bakken oil production since 2000. By the end of 2010, oil production rates had reached 458,000 barrels (72,800 m) per day, thereby outstripping

4345-550: The formation also extends into Montana and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. As of 2013, the Bakken was the source of more than ten percent of all US oil production. By April 2014, Bakken production in North Dakota and Montana exceeded 1 million barrels per day (160,000 m/d). As a result of increased production from the Bakken, and long-term production declines in Alaska and California , North Dakota as of 2014

4424-705: The gaps between larger particles). The graphic illustrates how some smaller grains can effectively fill the pores (where all water flow takes place), drastically reducing porosity and hydraulic conductivity, while only being a small fraction of the total volume of the material. For tables of common porosity values for earth materials , see the "further reading" section in the Hydrogeology article. Consolidated rocks (e.g., sandstone , shale , granite or limestone ) potentially have more complex "dual" porosities, as compared with alluvial sediment . This can be split into connected and unconnected porosity. Connected porosity

4503-474: The highest in the region. Man camps are temporary housing compounds built to support the work force in the region. These camps are prominent in the Bakken oil region as the influx of an overwhelmingly male work force has flooded the region. The camps are made as a response to too many jobs and not enough beds to house all of the new workers. Capital Lodge and Tioga Lodge in the Bakken oil region house up to 3,700 residents. These man camps have also been blamed for

4582-412: The incident, Payne texted his fiancée that he did not feel “comfortable welding this at all.” Al Jazeera correspondent Josh Rushing speculates that Payne's death is one that could have been avoided had the company he worked for had better safety measures in place for workers. The great increases in oil and gas production have exceeded the area's pipeline capacity to transport hydrocarbons to markets. There

4661-801: The increase of violent crime in the Bakken oil region. There is an even greater potential harm resulting from man camps when they are located on or near Native communities, which already face higher rates of violence against women. As pointed out by Muscogee Creek law scholar Sarah Deer, this is often due the complicated 2013 reform of the Violence Against Women Act. The 2013 reform is limited to violence committed by spouses, former spouses, or dating partners, making it so that sexual violence committed on reservations often cannot be prosecuted. Legal scholar Ana Condes states that man camps are “hotbeds of rape, domestic violence, and sex trafficking, and American Indian women are frequently targeted due to

4740-597: The method of grain packing. Rocks normally decrease in porosity with age and depth of burial. Tertiary age Gulf Coast sandstones are in general more porous than Cambrian age sandstones. There are exceptions to this rule, usually because of the depth of burial and thermal history. Porosity of surface soil typically decreases as particle size increases. This is due to soil aggregate formation in finer textured surface soils when subject to soil biological processes. Aggregation involves particulate adhesion and higher resistance to compaction. Typical bulk density of sandy soil

4819-545: The nature of the connate fluids , the nature of overlying sediments (which may impede fluid expulsion). One commonly used relationship between porosity and depth is the decreasing exponential function given by the Athy (1930) equation: where, ϕ ( z ) {\displaystyle \phi (z)} is the porosity of the sediment at a given depth ( z {\displaystyle z} ) (m), ϕ 0 {\displaystyle \phi _{0}}

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4898-552: The overall break-even price was US$ 62/barrel, but in high-productivity areas such as the Sanish Field and the Parshall Oil Field , the break-even price was US$ 38–US$ 40 per barrel. The rock formation consists of three members : lower shale , middle dolomite , and upper shale. The shales were deposited in relatively deep anoxic marine conditions, and the dolomite was deposited as a coastal carbonate bank during

4977-538: The pipeline capacity to ship oil out of the Bakken. There is some controversy over the safety of shipping this crude oil by rail due to its volatility. This was illustrated by the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster , in which a unit train carrying 77 tank cars full of highly volatile Bakken oil through Quebec from North Dakota to the Irving Oil Refinery in New Brunswick derailed and exploded in

5056-540: The porosity of a porous medium (such as rock or sediment ) describes the fraction of void space in the material, where the void may contain, for example, air or water. It is defined by the ratio : where V V is the volume of void-space (such as fluids) and V T is the total or bulk volume of material, including the solid and void components. Both the mathematical symbols ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } and n {\displaystyle n} are used to denote porosity. Porosity

5135-677: The proportionality between pore throat radii and porosity begins to fail and therefore so does the proportionality between porosity and hydraulic conductivity. For example: clays typically have very low hydraulic conductivity (due to their small pore throat radii) but also have very high porosities (due to the structured nature of clay minerals ), which means clays can hold a large volume of water per volume of bulk material, but they do not release water rapidly and therefore have low hydraulic conductivity. Well sorted (grains of approximately all one size) materials have higher porosity than similarly sized poorly sorted materials (where smaller particles fill

5214-488: The recovery factor at Viewfield from 19 percent to more than 30 percent, adding 1.5 to two billion barrels of additional oil. The US EIA reported that proved reserves in the Bakken/Three Forks were 2.00 billion barrels of oil as of 2011. The Bakken formation has produced oil since 1953, when the #1 Woodrow Starr was completed in North Dakota by Stanolind Oil and Gas. A portion of the Bakken oil region sits on

5293-458: The relative force required to pull a tillage implement through the clayey soil at field moisture content as compared to sand. Porosity of subsurface soil is lower than in surface soil due to compaction by gravity. Porosity of 0.20 is considered normal for unsorted gravel size material at depths below the biomantle . Porosity in finer material below the aggregating influence of pedogenesis can be expected to approximate this value. Soil porosity

5372-576: The state each week, mostly through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul . At least 15 major accidents involving crude oil or ethanol trains have occurred in the United States and Canada since 2006, and most small cities such as Lac-Megantic are not prepared for oil train explosions and fires. In March 2013, Canadian pipeline company Enbridge completed a pipeline to take North Dakota oil north into Canada, where it hooks up to Enbridge's main pipeline delivering western Canadian oil to refineries in

5451-411: The state of North Dakota a billion-dollar budget surplus. North Dakota, which ranked 38th in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001, rose steadily with the Bakken boom, and now has per capita GDP 29% above the national average. The industrialization and population boom has put a strain on water supplies, sewage systems, available housing and government services of the small towns and ranches in

5530-565: The state of North Dakota in 2007, shifted attention in the Bakken from Montana to the North Dakota side. The number of wells drilled in the North Dakota Bakken jumped from 300 in 2006 to 457 in 2007. The viability of the play in North Dakota west of the Nesson Anticline was uncertain until 2009, when Brigham Oil & Gas achieved success with larger hydraulic fracturing treatments, with 25 or more stages. According to

5609-609: The statistics service of the Department of Energy, estimated in 2013 that there were 1.6 billion barrels and 2.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable oil and natural gas in the Canadian portion of the Bakken formation. Crescent Point Energy and other operators are implementing waterfloods in the Bakken Formation of the Viewfield Oil Field in Saskatchewan. Some believe that waterflooding can raise

5688-435: The town centre of Lac-Mégantic. It destroyed 30 buildings (half the downtown core) and killed 47 people. The explosion was estimated to have a one-kilometre (0.62 mi) blast radius. As of January 2015, estimates varied on the break-even oil price for drilling Bakken wells. The North Dakota Department of Natural Resources estimated overall break-even to be just below US$ 40 per barrel. An analyst for Wood Mackenzie said that

5767-508: The types of kerogen that they contain, which in turn governs the type of hydrocarbons that will be generated: With increasing burial by later sediments and increase in temperature, the kerogen within the rock begins to break down. This thermal degradation or cracking releases shorter chain hydrocarbons from the original large and complex molecules occurring in the kerogen. The hydrocarbons generated from thermally mature source rock are first expelled, along with other pore fluids, due to

5846-428: The years of 2009 and 2013, there were more than 9,000 injury claims related to the oil and gas industry filed with North Dakota's Workforce Safety & Insurance Agency. Between 2011 and 2015, at least 40 workers died as a result of their industries in North Dakota's oil and gas fields. With the persistently low price of oil in 2015, there was pressure on rigs to maximize drilling speed, with associated additional risks to

5925-521: Was found to increase 30% in the Bakken oil region while simultaneously decreasing 4% in the non-Bakken region. Author Sari Horwitz for The Washington Post reports that the crime wave surrounding man camps is largely fueled by a market for illegal drugs, mainly heroin and methamphetamine. This has gone on to impact local reservations, which are often short staffed and unable to deal with these serious crimes. There are sometimes only two tribal officers on duty responsible for protecting entire reservations. There

6004-480: Was no corresponding rise in violent crime found in counties outside of the Bakken oil region. Violent victimizations were down 8% in this same time period in regions outside of the Bakken. The increase of violent victimization by strangers in the Bakken region increased by 53% in the region during those 6 years as well, with the victimization of Black and Native American people 2.5 times higher than corresponding rates for white people. Finally, serious violent victimization

6083-407: Was right, the large amounts of oil remaining in this formation would make it a prime oil exploration target. Price died in 2000 before his research could be peer-reviewed and published. The drilling and production successes in much of the Bakken beginning with the Elm Coulee Oil Field discovery in 2000 have proven correct his claim that the oil generated by the Bakken shale was there. In April 2008,

6162-562: Was the most productive oil producing county in the state as of 2015. By 2015, some companies had sold assets in the Bakken, in favor of exploring the Permian Basin in Texas, due in part to the higher cost of transport to major markets closer to tidewater with lower cost access to foreign oil markets. Oil extraction in Bakken field declined by around 20% from mid-2015 to mid-2016 and then remained rather stable through mid-2017. Between

6241-477: Was the second-largest oil-producing state in the US, behind only Texas in volume of oil produced. Bakken production has also increased in Canada , although to a lesser degree than in the US, since the 2004 discovery of the Viewfield Oil Field in Saskatchewan. The same techniques of horizontal drilling and multi-stage massive hydraulic fracturing are used. In December 2012, 2,357 Bakken wells in Saskatchewan produced

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