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114-627: Parts of Eastern Montana are affected by the economic boom in the Bakken formation , the largest oil discovery in U.S. history. The plains of eastern Montana were historically populated by Plains Indian tribes such as the Sioux , Blackfeet and Crow . By the late 19th century, people of European descent set up homesteads in the region, and the Native Americans were mostly confined to Indian reservations as they were throughout Montana and

228-510: A camp outside of Williston was shut down after allowing sewage to discharge openly over the property. Petroleum Petroleum is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture. It consists mainly of hydrocarbons , and is found in geological formations . The term petroleum refers both to naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil, as well as to petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil. Conventional reserves of petroleum are primarily recovered by drilling , which

342-520: A fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. Young found that by slow distillation he could obtain several useful liquids from it, one of which he named "paraffine oil" because at low temperatures it congealed into a substance resembling paraffin wax. The production of these oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated October 17, 1850. In 1850, Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under

456-532: 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

570-512: A much shallower level. The Athabasca oil sands are one example of this. An alternative mechanism to the one described above was proposed by Russian scientists in the mid-1850s, the hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin (petroleum formed by inorganic means), but this is contradicted by geological and geochemical evidence. Abiogenic sources of oil have been found, but never in commercially profitable amounts. "The controversy isn't over whether abiogenic oil reserves exist," said Larry Nation of

684-719: A part of the Great Plains , a recent (early 2010s) study has shown that, at least in some ways, the biomes of Eastern Montana have more in common and share more species with the Intermountain West scrub steppes and the Palouse of Eastern Washington than they have with the neighboring plains of The Dakotas . Some parts of eastern Montana, in areas most prone to drying chinooks, have near- desert conditions and scrub rather than grassland . Eastern Montana also has breaks and highlands that are widely forested , such as

798-463: 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

912-514: 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,

1026-476: A process known as catagenesis . Formation of petroleum occurs from hydrocarbon pyrolysis in a variety of mainly endothermic reactions at high temperatures or pressures, or both. These phases are described in detail below. In the absence of plentiful oxygen, aerobic bacteria were prevented from decaying the organic matter after it was buried under a layer of sediment or water. However, anaerobic bacteria were able to reduce sulfates and nitrates among

1140-477: 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

1254-477: 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

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1368-439: 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

1482-665: A significant amount of petroleum while drilling for lignite in Wietze , Germany. Wietze later provided about 80% of German consumption in the Wilhelminian Era. The production stopped in 1963, but Wietze has hosted a Petroleum Museum since 1970. Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century. Both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze,

1596-574: A source of internal and inter-state conflict, leading to both state-led wars and other resource conflicts . Production of petroleum is estimated to reach peak oil before 2035 as global economies lower dependencies on petroleum as part of climate change mitigation and a transition towards renewable energy and electrification . The word petroleum comes from Medieval Latin petroleum (literally 'rock oil'), which comes from Latin petra 'rock' (from Greek pétra πέτρα ) and oleum 'oil' (from Greek élaion ἔλαιον ). The origin of

1710-487: 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

1824-411: A variety of liquid, gaseous, and solid components. Lighter hydrocarbons are the gases methane , ethane , propane and butane . Otherwise, the bulk of the liquid and solids are largely heavier organic compounds, often hydrocarbons (C and H only). The proportion of light hydrocarbons in the petroleum mixture varies among oil fields . An oil well produces predominantly crude oil. Because the pressure

1938-526: A visit to Fort Duquesne in 1750. Early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. Merkwiller-Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, notably for medical purposes. There

2052-554: A year before Drake's Pennsylvania operation and could be argued to be the first commercial oil well in North America. The discovery at Oil Springs touched off an oil boom which brought hundreds of speculators and workers to the area. Advances in drilling continued into 1862 when local driller Shaw reached a depth of 62 metres using the spring-pole drilling method. On January 16, 1862, after an explosion of natural gas , Canada's first oil gusher came into production, shooting into

2166-533: 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

2280-491: 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

2394-491: Is called diagenesis , a word that means a transformation of materials by dissolution and recombination of their constituents. Kerogen formation continued to a depth of about 1 km from the Earth's surface where temperatures may reach around 50 °C . Kerogen formation represents a halfway point between organic matter and fossil fuels : kerogen can be exposed to oxygen, oxidize and thus be lost, or it could be buried deeper inside

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2508-726: Is considered a sticky, black, tar-like form of crude oil which is so thick and heavy that it must be heated or diluted before it will flow. Venezuela also has large amounts of oil in the Orinoco oil sands , although the hydrocarbons trapped in them are more fluid than in Canada and are usually called extra heavy oil . These oil sands resources are called unconventional oil to distinguish them from oil which can be extracted using traditional oil well methods. Between them, Canada and Venezuela contain an estimated 3.6 trillion barrels (570 × 10 ^  m ) of bitumen and extra-heavy oil, about twice

2622-738: Is done after a study of the relevant structural geology , analysis of the sedimentary basin , and characterization of the petroleum reservoir . There are also unconventional reserves such as oil sands and oil shale which are recovered by other means such as fracking . Once extracted, oil is refined and separated, most easily by distillation , into innumerable products for direct use or use in manufacturing. Products include fuels such as gasoline (petrol), diesel , kerosene and jet fuel ; asphalt and lubricants ; chemical reagents used to make plastics ; solvents , textiles , refrigerants , paint , synthetic rubber , fertilizers , pesticides , pharmaceuticals , and thousands of others. Petroleum

2736-431: 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 a few years earlier. The Mondak Field to the southeast of Elm Coulee extended the productive pinchout trend into North Dakota. Elm Coulee

2850-473: Is lower at the surface than underground, some of the gas will come out of solution and be recovered (or burned) as associated gas or solution gas . A gas well produces predominantly natural gas . However, because the underground temperature is higher than at the surface, the gas may contain heavier hydrocarbons such as pentane, hexane , and heptane (" natural-gas condensate ", often shortened to condensate. ) Condensate resembles gasoline in appearance and

2964-756: Is now called the Drake Well in Cherrytree Township, Pennsylvania .There also was a company associated with it, and it sparked a major oil drilling boom. The first commercial oil well in Canada became operational in 1858 at Oil Springs, Ontario (then Canada West ). Businessman James Miller Williams dug several wells between 1855 and 1858 before discovering a rich reserve of oil four metres below ground. Williams extracted 1.5 million litres of crude oil by 1860, refining much of it into kerosene lamp oil. Williams's well became commercially viable

3078-407: 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

3192-451: Is similar in composition to some volatile light crude oils . The hydrocarbons in crude oil are mostly alkanes , cycloalkanes and various aromatic hydrocarbons , while the other organic compounds contain nitrogen , oxygen , and sulfur , and traces of metals such as iron, nickel, copper and vanadium . Many oil reservoirs contain live bacteria. The exact molecular composition of crude oil varies widely from formation to formation but

3306-473: Is used in manufacturing a vast variety of materials essential for modern life, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 100 million barrels (16 million cubic metres ) each day. Petroleum production played a key role in industrialization and economic development. Some countries, known as petrostates , gained significant economic and international power over their control of oil production and trade. Petroleum exploitation can be damaging to

3420-634: 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

3534-655: The Custer National Forest and areas around Fort Peck Lake , in contrast to the almost completely treeless plains of the Midwest . Eastern Montana was mostly colonized by German and Scandinavian , especially Norwegian , immigrants. Bakken formation The Bakken Formation ( / ˈ b ɑː k ən / BAH-kən ) is a rock unit from the Late Devonian to Early Mississippian age occupying about 200,000 square miles (520,000 km ) of

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3648-674: The Earth's crust and be subjected to conditions which allow it to slowly transform into fossil fuels like petroleum. The latter happened through catagenesis in which the reactions were mostly radical rearrangements of kerogen. These reactions took thousands to millions of years and no external reactants were involved. Due to the radical nature of these reactions, kerogen reacted towards two classes of products: those with low H/C ratio ( anthracene or products similar to it) and those with high H/C ratio ( methane or products similar to it); i.e., carbon-rich or hydrogen-rich products. Because catagenesis

3762-490: The Orinoco Belt . While significant volumes of oil are extracted from oil sands, particularly in Canada, logistical and technical hurdles remain, as oil extraction requires large amounts of heat and water, making its net energy content quite low relative to conventional crude oil. Thus, Canada's oil sands are not expected to provide more than a few million barrels per day in the foreseeable future. Petroleum consists of

3876-745: The Soviet Union in total output. In 1973 , Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations imposed an oil embargo against the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and other Western nations which supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. The embargo caused an oil crisis . This was followed by the 1979 oil crisis , which was caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and caused oil prices to more than double. The two oil price shocks had many short- and long-term effects on global politics and

3990-540: The United States , but is responsible for only one percent of electricity generation. Petroleum's worth as a portable, dense energy source powering the vast majority of vehicles and as the base of many industrial chemicals makes it one of the world's most important commodities . The top three oil-producing countries as of 2018 are the United States, Russia , and Saudi Arabia . In 2018, due in part to developments in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling ,

4104-455: The actinomycetales order of bacteria also produced antibiotic compounds (e.g., streptomycin ). Thus the action of anaerobic bacteria ceased at about 10 m below the water or sediment. The mixture at this depth contained fulvic acids, unreacted and partially reacted fats and waxes, slightly modified lignin , resins and other hydrocarbons. As more layers of organic matter settled into the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure built up in

4218-791: 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

4332-585: The 12th century. It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură. Sophisticated oil pits, 4.5 to 6 metres (15 to 20 ft) deep, were dug by the Seneca people and other Iroquois in Western Pennsylvania as early as 1415–1450. The French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm encountered Seneca using petroleum for ceremonial fires and as a healing lotion during

4446-503: The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. "The controversy is over how much they contribute to Earth's overall reserves and how much time and effort geologists should devote to seeking them out." Three conditions must be present for oil reservoirs to form: The reactions that produce oil and natural gas are often modeled as first order breakdown reactions, where hydrocarbons are broken down to oil and natural gas by

4560-505: 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

4674-416: 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 the end of 2007 within

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4788-638: 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 the Elm Coulee Field in Montana. The 2000 discovery of the Elm Coulee Oil Field , Richland County, Montana , where production

4902-414: 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

5016-458: 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), 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

5130-575: 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

5244-400: 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

5358-545: 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 ,

5472-488: 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

5586-421: 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

5700-711: 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 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

5814-591: 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 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

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5928-569: 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

6042-455: The Earth's surface. Unusual magma intrusions, however, could have created greater localized heating. Geologists often refer to the temperature range in which oil forms as an "oil window" . Below the minimum temperature oil remains trapped in the form of kerogen. Above the maximum temperature the oil is converted to natural gas through the process of thermal cracking . Sometimes, oil formed at extreme depths may migrate and become trapped at

6156-694: 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 the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, daily oil production per well reached a plateau at 145 barrels in June 2010. Although

6270-404: 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

6384-474: The Rockies cause frequent mild spells of 35 to 60 °F (1.7 to 15.6 °C) lasting up to several weeks. In contrast, other winters such as 1916–17, 1935–36, 1968–69 and 1978–79 see the westerly flow move further south and in this absence of chinooks, temperatures can stay below 0 °F or −17.8 °C for weeks at a time. Though the prairie landscape of eastern Montana has traditionally been considered

6498-586: The Soviet Union included the goal to capture the Baku oilfields , as it would provide much-needed oil supplies for the German military which was suffering from blockades. Oil exploration in North America during the early 20th century later led to the U.S. becoming the leading producer by mid-century. As petroleum production in the U.S. peaked during the 1960s, the United States was surpassed by Saudi Arabia and

6612-576: The United States became the world's largest producer. About 80 percent of the world's readily accessible reserves are located in the Middle East , with 62.5 percent coming from the Arab five: Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , Iraq , Qatar , and Kuwait . A large portion of the world's total oil exists as unconventional sources, such as bitumen in Athabasca oil sands and extra heavy oil in

6726-690: 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

6840-458: 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

6954-411: 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 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

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7068-627: The air at a recorded rate of 480 cubic metres (3,000 bbl) per day. By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire, particularly the Branobel company in Azerbaijan , had taken the lead in production. Access to oil was and still is a major factor in several military conflicts of the 20th century, including World War II , during which oil facilities were a major strategic asset and were extensively bombed . The German invasion of

7182-551: The area around modern Baku , Azerbaijan . These fields were described by the Persian geographer Abu Bakr al-Razi in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain , distillation became available in Western Europe by

7296-478: 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

7410-511: 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

7524-474: The coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. Chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the coal mine at riddings Alfreton , Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a more viscous oil suitable for lubricating machinery. In 1848, Young set up a small business refining crude oil. Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at low heat, in creating

7638-462: The combined use of horizontal drilling , hydraulic fracturing , and 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

7752-436: 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

7866-573: 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

7980-573: The earliest Chinese writings, cites that oil in its raw state, without refining, was first discovered, extracted, and used in China in the first century BCE. In addition, the Chinese were the first to record the use of petroleum as fuel as early as the fourth century BCE. By 347 CE, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China. In the 7th century, petroleum was among the essential ingredients for Greek fire , an incendiary projectile weapon that

8094-469: The environment and human health. Extraction , refining and burning of petroleum fuels all release large quantities of greenhouse gases , so petroleum is one of the major contributors to climate change . Other negative environmental effects include direct releases, such as oil spills , as well as air and water pollution at almost all stages of use. These environmental effects have direct and indirect health consequences for humans. Oil has also been

8208-425: The fact that it happened at relatively low temperatures (when compared to commercial pyrolysis plants) of 60 to several hundred °C. Pyrolysis was possible because of the long reaction times involved. Heat for catagenesis came from the decomposition of radioactive materials of the crust, especially K , Th , U and U . The heat varied with geothermal gradient and was typically 10–30 °C per km of depth from

8322-418: 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

8436-495: 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

8550-815: The global economy. They led to sustained reductions in demand as a result of substitution to other fuels, especially coal and nuclear, and improvements in energy efficiency , facilitated by government policies. High oil prices also induced investment in oil production by non-OPEC countries, including Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, the North Sea offshore fields of the United Kingdom and Norway, the Cantarell offshore field of Mexico, and oil sands in Canada. About 90 percent of vehicular fuel needs are met by oil. Petroleum also makes up 40 percent of total energy consumption in

8664-408: The heavier end of the range, paraffin wax is an alkane with approximately 25 carbon atoms, while asphalt has 35 and up, although these are usually cracked in modern refineries into more valuable products. The lightest fraction, the so-called petroleum gases are subjected to diverse processing depending on cost. These gases are either flared off , sold as liquefied petroleum gas , or used to power

8778-475: 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

8892-413: 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

9006-803: 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

9120-658: The invention of the modern kerosene lamp (1853), the introduction of the first modern street lamp in Europe (1853), and the construction of the world's first modern oil "mine" (1854). at Bóbrka , near Krosno (still operational as of 2020). The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America and around the world quickly grew. The first oil well in the Americas was drilled in 1859 by Edwin Drake at what

9234-446: The large number of co-eluted hydrocarbons within oil, many cannot be resolved by traditional gas chromatography. This unresolved complex mixture (UCM) of hydrocarbons is particularly apparent when analysing weathered oils and extracts from tissues of organisms exposed to oil. Crude oil varies greatly in appearance depending on its composition. It is usually black or dark brown (although it may be yellowish, reddish, or even greenish). In

9348-411: The lower regions. As a consequence, compounds of this mixture began to combine in poorly understood ways to kerogen . Combination happened in a similar fashion as phenol and formaldehyde molecules react to urea-formaldehyde resins, but kerogen formation occurred in a more complex manner due to a bigger variety of reactants. The total process of kerogen formation from the beginning of anaerobic decay

9462-899: The matter to H 2 S and N 2 respectively by using the matter as a source for other reactants. Due to such anaerobic bacteria, at first, this matter began to break apart mostly via hydrolysis : polysaccharides and proteins were hydrolyzed to simple sugars and amino acids respectively. These were further anaerobically oxidized at an accelerated rate by the enzymes of the bacteria: e.g., amino acids went through oxidative deamination to imino acids , which in turn reacted further to ammonia and α-keto acids . Monosaccharides in turn ultimately decayed to CO 2 and methane . The anaerobic decay products of amino acids, monosaccharides, phenols and aldehydes combined into fulvic acids . Fats and waxes were not extensively hydrolyzed under these mild conditions. Some phenolic compounds produced from previous reactions worked as bactericides and

9576-432: 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 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

9690-553: 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

9804-541: 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

9918-411: 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 the Bakken came in 1995, when geologist Dick Findley realized that the dolomitic Middle member of

10032-556: The proportion of chemical elements varies over fairly narrow limits as follows: Four different types of hydrocarbon appear in crude oil. The relative percentage of each varies from oil to oil, determining the properties of each oil. The alkanes from pentane (C 5 H 12 ) to octane (C 8 H 18 ) are refined into gasoline, the ones from nonane (C 9 H 20 ) to hexadecane (C 16 H 34 ) into diesel fuel , kerosene and jet fuel . Alkanes with more than 16 carbon atoms can be refined into fuel oil and lubricating oil . At

10146-644: The refinery's own burners. During the winter, butane (C 4 H 10 ), is blended into the gasoline pool at high rates, because its high vapour pressure assists with cold starts. The aromatic hydrocarbons are unsaturated hydrocarbons that have one or more benzene rings . They tend to burn with a sooty flame, and many have a sweet aroma. Some are carcinogenic . These different components are separated by fractional distillation at an oil refinery to produce gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, and other hydrocarbon fractions. The components in an oil sample can be determined by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry . Due to

10260-412: The reservoir it is usually found in association with natural gas, which being lighter forms a "gas cap" over the petroleum, and saline water which, being heavier than most forms of crude oil, generally sinks beneath it. Crude oil may also be found in a semi-solid form mixed with sand and water, as in the Athabasca oil sands in Canada, where it is usually referred to as crude bitumen . In Canada, bitumen

10374-518: The same time the world's first, small, oil refinery was opened at Jasło in Poland (then Austria), with a larger one opened at Ploiești in Romania shortly after. Romania (then being a vassal of the Ottoman empire) is the first country in the world to have had its annual crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics: 275 tonnes for 1857. In 1858, Georg Christian Konrad Hunäus found

10488-523: The second half of the 19th century, the term became commonly known for the liquid form of hydrocarbons. Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times. More than 4300 years ago, bitumen was mentioned when the Sumerians used it to make boats. A tablet of the legend of the birth of Sargon of Akkad mentions a basket which was closed by straw and bitumen. More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus , asphalt

10602-577: 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

10716-412: 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

10830-573: The subsurface of the Williston Basin , underlying parts of Montana , North Dakota , Saskatchewan and Manitoba . The formation was initially described by geologist J. W. Nordquist in 1953. The formation is entirely in the subsurface, and has no surface outcrop. It is named after Henry O. Bakken (1901–1982), a farmer in Tioga, North Dakota , who owned the land where the formation was initially discovered while drilling for oil . Besides

10944-408: The term stems from monasteries in southern Italy where it was in use by the end of the first millennium as an alternative for the older term " naphtha ". After that, the term was used in numerous manuscripts and books, such as in the treatise De Natura Fossilium , published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer , also known as Georgius Agricola. After the advent of the oil industry, during

11058-539: The title of E.W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian and E. Meldrum & Co. at Glasgow; their works at Bathgate were completed in 1851 and became the first truly commercial oil-works in the world with the first modern oil refinery. The world's first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz in Austria. His achievements also included the discovery of how to distill kerosene from seep oil,

11172-437: 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

11286-468: The volume of the world's reserves of conventional oil. Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from fossilized organic materials , such as zooplankton and algae . Vast amounts of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms where they were covered in stagnant water (water with no dissolved oxygen ) or sediments such as mud and silt faster than they could decompose aerobically . Approximately 1 m below this sediment, water oxygen concentration

11400-727: The west. To this day, Eastern Montana has a proud Native American population. Eastern Montana was the location of the Battle of the Little Bighorn . Fort Peck Dam near Glasgow, Montana was a major project of the Public Works Administration , part of the New Deal . Construction of Fort Peck Dam started in 1933, and at its peak in July 1936 employed 10,546 workers. The dam, named for a 19th-century trading post,

11514-429: 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

11628-634: Was activity in various parts of the world in the mid-19th century. A group directed by Major Alexeyev of the Bakinskii Corps of Mining Engineers hand-drilled a well in the Baku region of Bibi-Heybat in 1846. There were engine-drilled wells in West Virginia in the same year as Drake's well. An early commercial well was hand dug in Poland in 1853, and another in nearby Romania in 1857. At around

11742-414: Was closed off from external reactants, the resulting composition of the fuel mixture was dependent on the composition of the kerogen via reaction stoichiometry . Three types of kerogen exist: type I (algal), II (liptinic) and III (humic), which were formed mainly from algae , plankton and woody plants (this term includes trees , shrubs and lianas ) respectively. Catagenesis was pyrolytic despite

11856-542: Was completed in 1940, and began generating electricity in July 1943. Eastern Montana has a semi-arid steppe climate with low precipitation that is to some extent countered by low evaporation rates. Typical precipitation is 10 to 20 inches (254.0 to 508.0 mm) mostly in the form of summer thunderstorms and snow, which can fall at any time of the year. Summers are short but hot and winters are long, cold and extremely variable. During some winters, such as 1925–26, 1930–31, 1960–61 and 1991–92, chinook winds descending from

11970-522: 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

12084-442: 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 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,

12198-423: Was low, below 0.1 mg/L, and anoxic conditions existed. Temperatures also remained constant. As further layers settled into the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure built up in the lower regions. This process caused the organic matter to change, first into a waxy material known as kerogen , found in various oil shales around the world, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via

12312-480: 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

12426-505: 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, 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

12540-409: 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,

12654-566: 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

12768-426: 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

12882-479: Was used by Byzantine Greeks against Arab ships, which were then attacking Constantinople . Crude oil was also distilled by Persian chemists , with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes). The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar , derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in

12996-544: Was used in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon ; there were oil pits near Ardericca and Babylon, and a pitch spring on Zakynthos . Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus , one of the tributaries of the Euphrates . Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. The use of petroleum in ancient China dates back to more than 2000 years ago. The I Ching , one of

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