[Aliblahba]

An estimated 25k oil workers are estimated to be laid off this year in North America alone.



   




I'll see you guys in Manila.

[Easy E]

^More than 25k are going to be laid off.

17,000 have already been laid off, and more job cuts are coming:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-oil-ser...43881.html

[redbeard]

For once Ali is right. If you've saved up your earnings (which you should have) this will be a great time to build assets.

If anyone has any interest in starting an oilfield related service business (laundry, maid service, strip club, etc.) NOW is the time to buy that land. And start preparing your business, so that when things pick up you can be mobile and start taking in cash again.

If you're not interested in that I would buy stock in the majors once you think they can't get any lower. Or at least use this as a time to buy a truck or two.

[RougeNoir]

(01-21-2015 07:14 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

An estimated 25k oil workers are estimated to be laid off this year in North America alone.

I'll see you guys in Manila.

You're going to Manila? What happened to downstream?

[rome26]

I went to the recent Job fair in midland tx and the pickings were slim. It's still a good time though if you're either a truck driver or a wireline guy.

[komatiite]

Rome, Why would wireline be any good if drilling has slowed down? They go hand-in-hand, as shown by the 25000 layoffs by the big three...

[Aliblahba]

My immediate and very aggressive short term goal is to get a rotational position or go overseas. I'm targeting Houston as the launching pad, as its the bet oil town to network. The industry is slow, but they are still hiring talented people. I have a couple interviews lined up, and a list of people to call. Hopefully something will pop up soon.

[elabayarde]

I will be posting layoff news and updates on the Frac page soon! Just been busy working and partying.

[rudder]

Where's the frac page?

Gas prices are already surging. Anyone know where the next boom will be and what jobs will be in demand?

[komatiite]

(02-21-2015 06:19 PM)rudder Wrote:  

Where's the frac page?

Gas prices are already surging. Anyone know where the next boom will be and what jobs will be in demand?

Rudder, you sent me a PM with a similar question but for some reason my PM Inbox keeps crashing whenever I try to hit send, my internet must be having a bad day.

It's pretty tough to tell where the next "boom" will be, though. So many things come into play- engineering technology, geopolitics, the economy, etc. Nobody will ever really know until some oil company figures out the next best thing.

You did mention specifically the Green River Formation in UT, CO and WY. Yes, there are more hydrocarbons in that formation than in all of Saudi Arabia. But it will remain impossible to economically extract for the foreseeable future. Why? Let me explain, with a comparison between the Bakken and the GR:

Imagine you are on a boat, anchored in the ocean in one spot, a mile or so from the shore. Below you, on the ocean floor, are deep marine clays, closer to shore are silts (sort of like a mix between sand and mud) and then on shore is a sandy beach. Over time, you feel like the shoreline is coming towards you. The beach is now only a stones throw from your boat. It's not the tide- the sea level is actually falling. Then, suddenly, the sea level rises again, and once again, the shoreline is a mile away from your anchored boat. That is sort of what happened when the Bakken formation came to be.



Where North Dakota, southern Saskatchewan and Eastern Montana currently sit was once an ocean not too far from the equator- around 300 million years ago. Multiple sea level rises and falls (called regressions and transgressions, respectively) create different deposits of rocks. So go back to that boat analogy- when we started, you were on a boat in deep water in the middle of the sea. This was the first transgressive event that created the bottom of the Bakken. The clays at the bottom of the sea created the "Lower Bakken Shale." Then, when the sea level fell and the shore came towards you, the rocks deposited under your boat became coarser grained. You know how you walk from the beach, you have coarser sand grains when high-energy waves crash on shore, but as you walk out, the sand transitions into mud? It's similar out at sea, just at a smaller scale. This is the Middle Bakken, a coarser-grained silty thing. Then, once again, the sea level rose, and you were back out at the middle of the sea, creating a little 'sandwich,' with the Upper Bakken shale on top:



Anyways, now that you know how the geology of the Bakken works, where does the oil come into play? Well, those deep muds get buried by sea level fluctuations, sedimentation from shore (ie, rivers etc) and so on, and when loose muds are buried and heated by the Earth's interior, they start to cook and harden, creating shale. Shale is sort of neat though- it concentrates tons of organic material. When phytoplankton and zooplankton at the surface of the sea die, they fall down to the bottom of the ocean floor. If they die when they are close to the shoreline, their remains are consumed by scavengers like bacteria. But if they die further out at sea, their remains are preserved, where there is little oxygen at depth to sustain scavengers. These dead plankton mingle and mix with the mud at the ocean floor, and are eventually buried, and become part of the shale once the rock hardens after burial.

However, over time (millions of years), the shale gets buried deeper and deeper, and in turn, heats up. When that shale gets over about 75 degrees C, the organic component of the dead plankton turns into Kerogen, which is a precursor to oil. It's sort of like an oily coal substance. At about 125-150 degrees C, the kerogen turns into oil, and since oil is buoyant with respect to water, it will migrate upwards.

This is how oil deposits are formed- the shale is cooked, and the oil migrates upwards towards surface, and flows very easily through material like sandstone (like beach sand). But if it hits an overlying rock layer with no permeability through which it can flow, it is trapped. This is how big hydrocarbon deposits form. Shale is a rock with no permeability.

In the Bakken, oil came up from the Lower member, and, in theory, could have flown right up and been perfectly trapped by the Upper member. The oil formed at the bottom of the Bakken hit a roadblock on its journey upwards, though. The Middle Bakken is not very permeable at all, so it sort of got stuck. Some of the oil worked its way up, some of it got trapped in the silty pores of the Middle Bakken.

We knew there was oil stuck in limbo in the Middle Bakken for 50 years, but since the rock has no permeability, efforts to drill holes into it and pump it out were fruitless. The silty grains of the rock were just packed too tightly together. Fluid will flow well through a bunch of boulders because the voids between the rocks are interconnected, but when you have clays and silts, fluid gets trapped easily.

When fracking came to be, we could just drill a horizontal well, pump water and sand down, and crack open those shales, crack them open with pressurized water, and prop those cracks open with sand. All that oil trapped in the Middle Bakken was freed from the tight permeability of the silty rock it was trapped in, and the Boom began.

Anyways, you now understand how oil is formed and how the Bakken was exploited. What is different about the Green River Formation?

We now travel back in time to the Eocene period, about 40-50 million years ago. This is what it looked like:



Yeah, not much different than now. Those three blobs on the left represent the Green River Formation. They were once Lakes along the shadow of the newly-formed Rocky Mountains. When big mountain ranges form, they often create big depressions in the ground called foreland basins, and they fill with water. These were some big ass lakes- Great Lake sized almost.

Lakes have thriving aquatic ecosystems, as you know. Tons of plankton in here too, with the added advantage being that when they die, they fall to the bottom of the lake, trapped in the basin. In theory, it should be a beautiful hydrocarbon trapping system, and it is. However, lakes have one major difference when compared to the ocean: they are much more susceptible to seasonality.

In winter, the lake will freeze. All of the plankton at the surface dies, and sinks to the bottom, creating a thin layer of organic material. But then spring comes, and snow melts. Tons of sediment off the mountains comes into the lake, and in deeper parts, thin layers of mud cover the organic material. Then comes summer, and the lake water begins to really heat up. Evaporation of the water follows. Think of boiling a pot of water on your stove- eventually, the water boils off, and you will have a thin layer of solute in your pan. Salt, carbonates, gypsum, whatever was floating in that water at the time.

This lake was somewhat rich in sulfates and calcium instead of salt, so when summer heat evaporated just a bit of the lakewater, some of those solids dropped out of the water and created a thin film of gypsum on the ocean floor. Summer ends, the lake freezes, plankton dies and the cycle continues.

Here is a picture of what the layering looks like in the Green River Formation:

The black stuff is the organic material and mud, the greyer stuff is mud, and the white stuff is gypsum.

Eventually the lakes dried out and were infilled by sediment, leaving what was once these lakes buried under Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, and it was dubbed the Green River Formation.

But hey- we have all this organic material in place- more than Saudi Arabia! Why can't we just frack it?

Remember how I told you how, before oil is formed, organic material has to go through a transition phase in which it is immature, called Kerogen? Well, that is where we are now. Kerogen is super easy to convert into oil once we get our hands on it, but the problem is pumping it. You can't really pump that stuff to surface- it's like oily coal, like I said earlier. The Green River Formation hasn't been cooked sufficiently to convert that stuff to oil yet.

I'm not sure if it will be produced anytime soon. It would be too intrusive to mine- there is too much civilization around (at least, compared to the Oil Sands in Northern Canada), plus a couple National Parks nearby. It is over 1000 feet deep in places, which is pretty shallow compared to most deposits like the Bakken, but that is too deep to open-pit mine like what they can do in Canada. They've tried drilling wells that inject steam down hole to mobilize it, but the technology isn't there yet.

Anyways, sorry for the long winded explanation. I think about it a lot, because it is such an incredible resource. I hope that one day the engineering falls in place to exploit it within environmental reason, but until that day, I don't see anything changing in the industry.

We are really good at geology now, and have known where the oil is for decades. Geology is way ahead of the engineering (it's a lot easier!), so now all we do is tap out these unconventional plays that we have now like the Bakken and wait for the next frontier to develop...

[Menace]

Koma that was incredibly interesting and well written. I don't even have an interest in this field but found that fascinating. Thank you.

[samsamsam]

Koma awesome post.

[Disco_Volante]

Komatiite I work as a mudlogger, I must say I wasn't expecting detailed geological information on this forum

What most people also dont realize, is that phytoplankton's carbon comes from sunlight it absorbs before its buried. So oil is in fact solar energy.

[komatiite]

(02-22-2015 03:12 AM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

Komatiite I work as a mudlogger, I must say I wasn't expecting detailed geological information on this forum

What most people also dont realize, is that phytoplankton's carbon comes from sunlight it absorbs before its buried. So oil is in fact solar energy.

Really? How's it going for you, you getting any work lately? I did wellsite myself for a while. Was not a big fan, I imagine it would have been more interesting 20 years ago when you'd see new rocks every day on those verticals. Now with the horizontals all you get is the same boring ass shaley shit under the microscope all day.

At least we get rocks to look at, can only imagine how dull it must be for MWD/LWD staring at the same gamma curve for two weeks straight!

[Disco_Volante]

I was in the permian 2011-2012, then I was lucky enough to be in the paradox basin of southwest colorado the past couple years. Drilling around the mountains was beautiful.

I quit to start my own mudlogging company, myself and some partners made a computer system that can identify drill cuttings. The problem is the roughnecks would have to clean the sample and use our device for it to be valuble.
Obviously, sometimes the rock sample is very muddy so in order to lease my device to an operator, they would have to force their drilling contractor to clean the samples and use my device.
Ive invested all my money in this and am heavily indebted, so if it doesn't work out I'm completely fucked.

It's only valuble under the assumption that the operator can force the driller to have a floor hand clean the rock samples so I really dont know how that aspect will be received when I try to sell it.

Do you have a masters? I actually dropped out of a geology program before working in the field.

[Aliblahba]

Mudloggers are the lowest common denominators on a rig. You will get typcasted in 2 years and no company will want to move you into another position. Trust me, don't ever go there.

Nice writeup Koma, but I know where the next big oil boom is. It's happening right now. I will be willing to share this info for financial compensation. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

[oilbreh]

(02-22-2015 04:32 AM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I was in the permian 2011-2012, then I was lucky enough to be in the paradox basin of southwest colorado the past couple years. Drilling around the mountains was beautiful.

I quit to start my own mudlogging company, myself and some partners made a computer system that can identify drill cuttings. The problem is the roughnecks would have to clean the sample and use our device for it to be valuble.
Obviously, sometimes the rock sample is very muddy so in order to lease my device to an operator, they would have to force their drilling contractor to clean the samples and use my device.
Ive invested all my money in this and am heavily indebted, so if it doesn't work out I'm completely fucked.

It's only valuble under the assumption that the operator can force the driller to have a floor hand clean the rock samples so I really dont know how that aspect will be received when I try to sell it.

Do you have a masters? I actually dropped out of a geology program before working in the field.

i dont think that would be a problem, but I dont know how clean we are talking about, I always had to use a metal sifter and clean the sample with diesel before getting it to the geo

[komatiite]

(02-22-2015 04:32 AM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I was in the permian 2011-2012, then I was lucky enough to be in the paradox basin of southwest colorado the past couple years. Drilling around the mountains was beautiful.

I quit to start my own mudlogging company, myself and some partners made a computer system that can identify drill cuttings. The problem is the roughnecks would have to clean the sample and use our device for it to be valuble.
Obviously, sometimes the rock sample is very muddy so in order to lease my device to an operator, they would have to force their drilling contractor to clean the samples and use my device.
Ive invested all my money in this and am heavily indebted, so if it doesn't work out I'm completely fucked.

It's only valuble under the assumption that the operator can force the driller to have a floor hand clean the rock samples so I really dont know how that aspect will be received when I try to sell it.

Do you have a masters? I actually dropped out of a geology program before working in the field.

No I switched to engineering after quitting, worked production for a while and am now doing a masters in reservoir engineering.

From what OilBreh said above, yeah, he would give the sample a quick rinse with diesel, but then once I got it then it would take like 5 mins per sample to clean (assuming they used invert). Gotta fuck around sieving out the huge chunks, then repeated washing with a chemical like varsol, then drying... If you are sampling every 5 meters, then I dunno if a roughneck would have time for that, they have a ton of shit to do

How does your process work? Once somebody cleans the sample then what? Do you have like a video-microscope on site and you log/analyze the sample remotely? Sounds interesting... I know that this company has a similar thing up in Canada but have never seen it in action:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=ch...%20geology
(sorry, just click the first link PASON Remote Geosteering Geology Service & Support ... ... its a PDF)

(02-22-2015 06:25 AM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

Mudloggers are the lowest common denominators on a rig. You will get typcasted in 2 years and no company will want to move you into another position. Trust me, don't ever go there.

Nice writeup Koma, but I know where the next big oil boom is. It's happening right now. I will be willing to share this info for financial compensation. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Up in Canada, the geologist on site gets the sample from the roughneck, cleans it, then brings it into their shack and checks it out under the microscope. If adjustments need to be made, ie, faulting is evident (ie, a missing formation implies a normal fault, repeated section suggests reverse faulting) or if depths vary from proposals built from offset well logs, we talk to the guys in town to make amendments and then discuss it with the company man on site. Since MWD tool is 15m behind drillbit on almost every well, you do have to be pretty cognizant if anything weird happens, especially on wells in poorly understood areas. If you are going horizontal and you don't note a subtle change in the porosity and fail to notify directional, you could blow out of the formation and the well is over, MWD won't catch it until it's too late. Much less worries if you are working on a development well in an area that is well understood. In the States, do mudloggers have the same job? I have heard they have a guy on site who does geosteering...

If geology is the lowest common denominator on a well, then I don't get why they are paid 1000+ a day up in Canada. Similar rate to MWD, although directional drillers make like double that! Either way, there must be a completely different set of requirements for mudlogging in the States if youre so down on it...

I do agree with the comment on being typecast, though. After a couple years of wellsite I was done, I saw the writing on the wall. I hated the work, it was very low job satisfaction and quite boring, and there were younger guys at my wellsite company with over 5 years trying to get jobs as development geologists in an office in Calgary, but couldn't shake the 'field guy' label.

I'm curious on your next big thing! I often wonder what that will be as well. I have a good one in Canada that I once did some preliminary work on if you wanna trade...






edit, fucked the link up

[Disco_Volante]

Komatiite do you happen to know how many wells even use a mudlogger?

Like out of about 1450 active wells in the U.S., how many use a mudlogging service? Ive never found any data on the demand for mudloggers.

But my device is different from geosteering, since geosteering still involves using a person to identify the cuttings, albeit remotely. I imagine it's not even that much cheaper than a mudlogger.

Working for a small mudlogging company was the best though because I could do an entire well by myself if I wanted. So for a 25 day well, I could get drunk in my trailer and noone ever noticed even with the strict rules against it. When Id go into town and get groceries, Id put liquor bottles in the food packages to sneak it past the safety hand at the gate.
Drinking on a rig getting paid $400 a day to mudlog was good times, whereas the roughnecks got tested all the time.

[komatiite]

I am still unclear what a mudlogger does? Do you just clean samples and give to a geologist? No analysis?

[Disco_Volante]

A mudlogger

-identifies the rock samples at each depth i.e.(40% shale, 60% limestone @ 2400 feet)
They even describe the specific porosity, permeability etc. A mudlogger is essentially a wellsite geologist. The exploration geologist in an office typically has a masters in geology, whereas the wellsite mudlogger has at best a bachelors in geology (or no degree at all)

-Monitors the gas coming out of the well. Using a chromatograph they have a plastic gas line that runs from the shale shaker to the trailer where it tells them levels of methane etc, for hydrocarbon shows and gas kicks.

I think only a small percentage of wells even use a mudlogger, as many can just use gamma ray on known basins to determine what zones theyre drilling through. Only certain exploration wells even care about the rock descriptions.
For example, they can use LWD like the baker hughes startracker can give them real-time gamma ray so they can correlate what theyre drilling through without a mudlogger on site.

However, paying a mudlogging company $600 day rate is alot cheaper than paying LWD engineers like $3000-5000 per day for the real-time gamma ray info

[komatiite]

Quote:

I think only a small percentage of wells even use a mudlogger, as many can just use gamma ray on known basins to determine what zones theyre drilling through. Only certain exploration wells even care about the rock descriptions

No kidding! In Canada they still pay two guys each well to do the exact same job. With all these advances in LWD then you gotta figure on-site geology may go extinct soon! Not to mention how many geologists get shitcanned from office jobs now, they just don't need that many anymore because the areas are so well understood, it's just an engineering challenge now to drill the reserves as inexpensively as possible.

Looks like AliB was on to something...

[Aliblahba]

(02-22-2015 06:45 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

Looks like AliB was on to something...

You guys would be surprised. I only drop a fraction of what I know here.

[oilbreh]

Rig activity as only been really picking up in the middle east from what I can tell. Domestic off shore doesnt look too bad as well. I dont really know what it takes to get a job in the middle east, it use to be several years experience, now its prob much harder though due to a high supply of available workers. Canada looks like its hurting.

[el mechanico]

(02-24-2015 08:20 AM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

(02-22-2015 06:45 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

Looks like AliB was on to something...

You guys would be surprised. I only drop a fraction of what I know here.