Academic

CANADIAN OIL TECHNOLOGY GOES GLOBAL: It took a decade for the Bakken play, centred in North Dakot?

By Glenn Reynolds

CANADIAN OIL TECHNOLOGY GOES GLOBAL:

It took a decade for the Bakken play, centred in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, to evolve from a wild idea to one of North America?s most significant new sources of oil.

Now the technology that made it possible, a combination of horizontal drilling and targeted hydraulic fracturing ? much of it developed and proven by Canadians ? is on the cusp of global oil field deployment.

While it may not mean relief from high oil prices today, it could delay the sunset of the fuel if it?s as successful in the oil sector as it has been in the gas side of the business, where it made fields so much more prolific the flood of new supply has overwhelmed North American markets.

Adding to its promise is that this new type of unconventional oil involves a renewal of mature oil fields, many located outside politically risky places like the Middle East, where only a fraction of the oil has been recovered using old drilling methods.

Expect environmentalists to try to shut it down, as they do with pretty much all alternatives to Middle East oil.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on March 19, 2011 (boomark / email).