When was oil discovered in williston nd

By , the price of oil had recovered, but the next boom cycle would not hit western North Dakota until some vital technological improvements made oil extraction more profitable. The first of these changes is called horizontal drilling. In this process, a drill burrows straight down for about 10, feet nearly two miles , and then a slightly curved piece is added to the drill bit that turns the drilling in a horizontal direction.

The new technologies were applied to an oil-bearing layer called Bakken located about 10, feet below the surface.

See Map 2. Fracturing wells is not an entirely new technique, but once it was applied to the Bakken oil layer after , North Dakota oil wells began to produce profitably. See Map 3. In , drilling in the Bakken surged. The demand for workers, materials, and support systems grew rapidly. See Document 4. Fracturing also called for the use of a mix of water, salt, chemicals, and sand to fracture the rock and to keep the fractures open.

The significance of the Bakken oil formation can be measured statistically. These numbers show growth in production over the last sixty years, and show how technological advances such as fracturing and horizontal drilling have raised production. Today, the average Bakken oil well will probably produce , barrels of oil over a lifespan of 45 years. Why is this important?

The combination of fracking and horizontal drilling means that oil exploration and drilling in North Dakota is no longer financially risky business. It took decades for Tom Leach to find a good source of oil in the Clarence Iverson 1. Today, oil companies can count on success nearly every time they drill a new well. History tells us that technology and the demand for oil will keep western North Dakota oil fields active for many more decades. The Bakken is just the beginning.

The Three Forks, a formation just below the Bakken, is already beginning to produce oil. There is a downside to everything, and the Bakken, for all of its advantages, has some serious downsides. North Dakotans are trying to figure out how to live with the costs of prosperity. Landowners in the Bakken oil region, many of whom are ranchers or farmers, have had their operations and lives disrupted by oil drilling. If landowners do not also own mineral rights, they may look out the window one day and see a drilling rig on their land.

Each well requires hundreds of truckloads of equipment, water, chemical, and sand. Noisy drilling takes place day and night for a week or more until the well has been completed. The dust raised by the trucks settles on pasture grasses that cattle eat. A few ranchers have reported problems with respiratory and digestive health in cattle and dogs.

Traffic accidents and oil well accidents have increased in the western part of North Dakota as the Bakken oil field has developed. Gravel roads, paved county roads, and state highways were built for light traffic and occasional heavy trucks.

These roads are not adequate for the high speeds and heavy loads of oil field trucks. In parts of McKenzie County, the county has given responsibility for road upkeep to oil companies because the county budgets could not keep up with the need for improved roads.

Bakken area residents are also concerned about water. Ranchers fear that oil activity could contaminate their wells.

The North Dakota Health Department has not found any contaminated well water. In addition, oil companies argue that fracked wells wells developed by hydraulic fracturing are safely cased in cement and break the shale rock two miles below the surface.

Fracked oil wells are far deeper than water wells. Nevertheless, ranchers worry that careless construction might lead to a break in a well casing that could cause well water contamination. Without clean water, ranchers cannot continue to raise cattle. In addition to possible contamination, ranchers worry that oil drillers who use well water for fracking will deplete the aquifers OCK wih furs that ranchers depend on for their water supply.

Many ranchers prefer the oil companies to take their water from Lake Sakakawea as some oil companies do. Flaring of natural gas imposes a different kind of problem.

Every oil well produces some natural gas. This gas is processed for home heating and cooking. The gas is lit and burns off. North Dakota is making plans to capture and use more natural gas. In the meantime, the flares are so bright they create light pollution which can be detected from outer space.

Images 18 and Perhaps the greatest concern about the Bakken oil fields is the oil, chemical, and salt also called brine spills that have occurred. When the Missouri River flooded in , some of these berms were overtaken by flood waters. Accidental oil spills have contaminated some farm land.

These can be cleaned up by removing the contaminated soil, but it may take months, even years, to finish the job. Spills of salt water produced by fracking can destroy the productivity of the land for years. Chemical spills can contaminate waterways and groundwater. There were 1, spills of different amounts involving oil, brine, and chemicals in the Bakken region of North Dakota in Disposal of fracking wastes continues to be a problem. In early , there were saltwater disposal wells in the Bakken oil fields.

The salt water that is used in fracking is removed as the drilling is completed. It is then injected into wells several thousand feet below the surface. The demand for saltwater disposal wells currently exceeds the number of wells available. Filter socks are large filter bags that capture silica dust during fracking. As the water that was poured into the well during fracking returns to the surface, the socks capture the solids in the wastewater.

The wastewater may include salt, metals, and other chemicals. Tons of filter socks are used daily, and, so far, there is limited disposal space in North Dakota. The problem of disposal of fracking wastes continues to be a problem. In early , there are saltwater disposal wells in the Bakken oil fields. It is then injected into storage wells several thousand feet below the surface. The need for saltwater disposal wells currently exceeds the number of wells available.

Filter socks are large bags that capture silica dust during fracking. About one-third of these materials are radioactive because of naturally occurring radioactive materials in the strata the drills enter. It took the Carter Oil Company three months with modern equipment to drill nearly 5, feet — and end up with a dry hole in Two years later the company still had not found any oil.

The well reached a depth of 5, feet, found granite, and was plugged and abandoned. Soon, however, others would come to work on North Dakota drilling rigs.

Throughout the entire discovery period dry holes were not looked at as failures, but as learning experiences as valuable geologic and technical knowledge was gained from each attempt. In , geologist Thomas W. An independent oilman and investor, Thomas W. Leach was a former chief geologist for an Oklahoma oil company who was convinced oil could be found. In the late s he had convinced Standard Oil Company of California to drill a 10,foot well there. The site Leach suggested did not find any oil — costing Standard Oil almost a million dollars.

Army Artillery, Leach returned to North Dakota and continued leasing land. The geologist eventually convinced Amerada Petroleum of Tulsa that success could be found in the Nesson Anticline about 50 miles northeast of Williston. Following a January 29 blizzard that shut down the well, drilling continued until total depth — 11, feet — was reached on February 4, No oil was found. Colonel Edward A. The practice was successful and soon the dry holes of Pennsylvania were turned into producers by blasting wells with nitroglycerin torpedoes.

On March 1, the Clarence Iverson No. According to Herz, perforation became a standard practice whereby multiple charges attached to a gun were lowered into the wells casing.

Once into place the charges were fired, perforating the well at small intervals, hopefully releasing the oil from the rock. Learn more history about perforating with shaped charges in Downhole Bazooka. Work on the Iverson well was again halted the week of March 5 by another blizzard. The well would remain idle for several weeks until the snow choked roads could be cleared for passage.

With the well plugged back to a depth of 11, feet, the work stopped to make repairs and prepare for another perforation. The well was again perforated, this time from 11, feet to 11, feet with four holes per foot.

At a. The state of North Dakota finally had its first discovery well. His son Cliff, who was 20 when oil was found on the family farm, remembers his father smiling when oil surfaced. The farm became one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Upper Midwest after oil was discovered there. The Clarence Iverson No. The earliest producing wells of the Bakken shale formation were drilled in the early s on Henry O. But petroleum industry efforts to extract shale oil using conventional vertical wells historically have proven difficult.

The Bakken formation first produced in from a well named after Henry Bakken, the landowner.