Oil Shale News

From: Platts

By: Tamsin Carlisle, tamsin_carlisle@platts.com

The Middle East may have big deposits of shale gas, the unconventional natural gas resource that has transformed North America’s gas market, a senior officer of Partex Oil and Gas said Monday.
The gas increasingly tapped from shale beds in North America and elsewhere occurs in rock formations that are considered the “source rocks” for conventional oil and gas resources, Antonio Costa Silva, Chairman of the Management Commission of Partex, told the Middle East Gas Forum in Abu Dhabi.

“In the Middle East we have plenty of source rocks, so for sure we have plenty of shale resources that can be used for the domestic market,” he said.

From: Bloomberg Businessweek

By:  JAMES MacPHERSON

North Dakota’s booming oil patch is sweeping down to South Dakota, amid speculation that a reservoir similar to the rich Bakken shale formation could contain millions of barrels of crude.

The Associated Press has learned that a flurry of recent leasing activity in South Dakota is tied to hopes for the Tyler Formation. State geologist Ed Murphy in North Dakota said the formation extends from the western part of that state into northwest South Dakota and may hold up to one-third the volume of oil estimated in the prolific Bakken, a formation the U.S. Geological Survey called the largest continuous oil accumulation it had ever assessed.

David LaGesse

For National Geographic News

Published September 28, 2011

The rolling high plains east of Colorado Springs (map) saw plenty of change before the “landmen” came. Ranchland that once stretched three or four miles between homes filled in with residential developments on multi-acre lots, bringing more people and paved roads.

Then, about two years ago, came a rush of real estate negotiators, snapping up leases for potential shale oil drilling. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Rick Davis, 53, whose grandfather started buying ranchland in the early 1900s in Colorado’s eastern El Paso County.   “Turns out that land was right in the center of all the activity.”