Insights Across the Energy Value Chain

In any presidential election year it is inevitable that candidates on both sides of the political spectrum will begin hailing or bashing tax breaks, subsidies, and regulations throughout the US business landscape. No business is more susceptible to these discussions...

Saudi Arabia is all over the news. Every time a minister speaks, headlines reverberate through all of the O&G industry sites, and even Harold Hamm’s recent Cowboyistan manifesto points to the Saudi’s November decision to maintain production levels as the...

What Exactly is Condensate in Oil & Gas? Condensates and natural gas liquids are a rapidly growing segment of US and international oil & gas production. The following sections provide a detailed overview of NGLs, their composition, extraction processes, and...

Part 2: Stratigraphy The prequel to this blog post (Part 1: Evolution and Deposition) discussed how the Greater Permian Basin (GPB) formed and was divided into several sub-basins. It continued to uncover why the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin...

Today I am going to discuss an area of the US oil field that doesn’t get a lot attention but has been and remains an important part of the US oil business. Since 1870 Michigan has been an important source...

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING: FROM LUXURY TO NECESSITY The upstream industry has been experimenting with well stimulation (including hydraulic fracturing techniques) since long before “fracking” became a household term. Stimulation has taken many forms, including extremes like the a-bomb frac attempted in the...

Evolution and Deposition of the Permian Basin This will be the first of a three part series where I will discuss the Permian Basin as well as the similarities and differences in the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin. This...

Several weeks ago I wrote about US Well Numbers and the basics of how they are numbered and who numbers them along with the standards committee that sets the rules. Today I’m writing about the Canadian system which is very different from...

After drilling and casing your well, the next phase in well completion is perforation. Just as drilling and casing happen together, best practices in today’s oil field involve an “underbalanced” downhole environment, and thus, have the perforation happening in tandem with the installation of...