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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (177263)	3/18/2013 3:56:58 PM
From: Bearcatbob	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206106

I think I remember the Russians yelling about dangers of fracking! I guess only when it threatens their markets. Sorta like other purveyors of high cost energy.

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (177263)	4/1/2013 6:17:40 AM
From: elmatador	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206106

Russia is gearing up for an oil boom on the same scale as the US as the techniques that sparked the shale revolution are applied to Siberia’s deposits of unconventional oil, according to one of the country’s top oil executives. Russia gears up for shale boom By Guy Chazan in London Russia is gearing up for an oil boom on the same scale as the US, as the techniques that sparked the shale revolution are applied to Siberia’s deposits of unconventional oil, according to one of the country’s top oil executives. Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Lukoil, said Russia, the world’s second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, will be able to maintain crude output of 10m barrels a day for years to come as output from western Siberia’s Bazhenov Shale offsets declines in the country’s mature oilfields. But he said such an outcome hinged on new tax breaks the government has promised for the industry. Ministers have proposed a waiver of Russia’s onerous mineral extraction tax for companies drilling in the Bazhenov. Mr Fedun told the Financial Times that President Vladimir Putin’s goal of keeping Russian oil production at 10m b/d until 2020 was “absolutely realistic”, “but only if these fiscal innovations are introduced”. Experts have long placed Russia at or near the top of the list of countries with the potential to replicate North America’s shale revolution. It has huge unconventional resources, a sophisticated oil industry and little of the environmental opposition that has blocked shale in some European countries. Analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch say the Bazhenov could pump 500,000 barrels a day – about 5 per cent of Russia’s current production – and bring the government some $7bn in annual tax revenue. Most of the large Russian oil companies – such as Lukoil, Russia’s biggest private producer, Rosneft and Gazprom Neft – have acreage in the Bazhenov and have launched projects to begin exploiting its resources. But getting there will not be easy. Rigs capable of drilling horizontally are not as readily available in Siberia as they are in the US. And there are still great uncertainties about the geology. “The Bazhenov is a pig in a poke,” says Thane Gustafson, senior director of Russian and Caspian Energy at IHS CERA. “It’s going to take a lot of tapping and poking before we know what its potential is.” Still, even the sceptics agree that the resource could be huge. Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates the Bazhenov has about 2tn barrels of oil in place, five times more than the Bakken’s in-place number. There is also a strong incentive to repeat the US’s success. There, techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, and horizontal drilling have unlocked vast reserves long considered uneconomic, causing a boom in oil and gas production that is powering an industrial renaissance. The boom started with shale gas, but in recent years has spread to “tight oil” deposits in places such as North Dakota’s Bakken Shale and Eagle Ford in South Texas

To: Dennis Roth who wrote (177263)	5/24/2013 11:46:47 AM
From: Dennis Roth	Respond to of 206106

Gazprom Neft conducts fracking campaign Published: May 24, 2013 at 6:29 AM upi.com MOSCOW, May 24 (UPI) -- Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft announced it conducted its first hydraulic fracturing campaign on the Yamal Peninsula at its Novoport field. "A total of five hydraulic fracturing operations were performed at four wells, including single hydraulic fractures at vertical wells and a multistage hydraulic fracture on a horizontal well," the company said in a statement. Gazprom Neft said it was the first time for hydraulic fracturing operations on the Yamal Peninsula. Average flow rate from the wells exceeded expectations. The Novoport field is the largest in the area, with an estimated 9.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.6 billion barrels of oil, the online Oil and Gas Journal reports. Hydraulic fracturing helped lead to substantial oil and gas production gains from the United States and Canada. The practice allows drillers to access previously unobtainable reserves. Denis Kashapov, executive director of the regional subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, said more hydraulic fracturing campaigns are expected on the Yamal Peninsula.