SO much for Biden admin stopping oil and gas leasing

[MetropolitanCowboy]

1 minute ago, Billings said:

And the cowboy bar

I always liked the bullet holes from Butch Cassidy in the ceiling there. 
 

Biff from Letterman went there one time on one of his segments for that show, lol

[OrediggerPoke]

29 minutes ago, Billings said:

Drive out in the hills behind Powell sometime.  Dirt roads that go all the way to Montana and to the road between Billings and Red Lodge.  Old abandoned oil pipes and buildings.  Uncapped wells.  Is a mess in some areas

Most of those wells in the Big Horn Basin were drilled over 100 years ago.  Development and regulation then is not even remotely comparable to drilling and regulation today.

[RSF]

4 hours ago, OrediggerPoke said:

You're going to be devastated to learn that all of the Western United States including Nevada and California was once referred to as Laramidia named after the Laramide orogeny and the Laramie Mountains of Wyoming.

sounds like a venereal disease.

[Billings]

54 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Most of those wells in the Big Horn Basin were drilled over 100 years ago.  Development and regulation then is not even remotely comparable to drilling and regulation today.

true but nobody has ever cleaned it up.  Wyo has a large number of orphan wells and often it is the surface land owner who gets stuck with the bill.  I hope some of the new drilling and leasing fees go to clean up the past rather than the surface owner or taxpayer getting stuck with the bill.

 

[MetropolitanCowboy]

4 minutes ago, Billings said:

true but nobody has ever cleaned it up.  Wyo has a large number of orphan wells and often it is the surface land owner who gets stuck with the bill

Sounds like the various mines scattered around Montana.

[OrediggerPoke]

1 hour ago, Billings said:

true but nobody has ever cleaned it up.  Wyo has a large number of orphan wells and often it is the surface land owner who gets stuck with the bill.  I hope some of the new drilling and leasing fees go to clean up the past rather than the surface owner or taxpayer getting stuck with the bill.

 

The WOGCC has a production tax that goes to the 'orphan well' program that has been plugging some of the old vertical wells and more recently abandoned CBM wells from companies that went belly up. The State has taken a much more aggressive approach on reclamation than the federal government.  The relatively new 'idle well' bonding in Wyoming provides much more incentive for proper reclamation.

 

With some of those really old wells, it is not just the surface that is a concern.  Many years ago, they literally plugged some of those old wells with large logs...which over the years can lead to very serious concerns.  The plugging requirements of today are worlds' different than the plugging requirements of 80 years ago.

[Billings]

8 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

The WOGCC has a production tax that goes to the 'orphan well' program that has been plugging some of the old vertical wells and more recently abandoned CBM wells from companies that went belly up. The State has taken a much more aggressive approach on reclamation than the federal government.  The relatively new 'idle well' bonding in Wyoming provides much more incentive for proper reclamation.

 

With some of those really old wells, it is not just the surface that is a concern.  Many years ago, they literally plugged some of those old wells with large logs...which over the years can lead to very serious concerns.  The plugging requirements of today are worlds' different than the plugging requirements of 80 years ago.

That is good news that they are finally going back to some of the abandoned wells and there is a funding mechanism in place.   Is that state fund covering BLM wells as well or only state land?

[OrediggerPoke]

3 minutes ago, Billings said:

That is good news that they are finally going back to some of the abandoned wells and there is a funding mechanism in place.   Is that state fund covering BLM wells as well or only state land?

Covering all wells located in Wyoming that are not on federal surface.  Some of the CBM wells being reclaimed by the State of Wyoming are actually located on private surface but were developed under federal oil and gas leases due to federal mineral ownership.

[halfmanhalfbronco]

I love how informed Wyoming fans are on this and related topics, I learn a lot reading.

I love even more how cliche it is that Wyoming fans know so much this and related topics. 

[Billings]

4 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Covering all wells located in Wyoming that are not on federal surface.  Some of the CBM wells being reclaimed by the State of Wyoming are actually located on private surface but were developed under federal oil and gas leases due to federal mineral ownership.

Thanks.  Now we need to feds to cover the wells on federal surface

[OrediggerPoke]

3 minutes ago, halfmanhalfbronco said:

I love how informed Wyoming fans are on this and related topics, I learn a lot reading.

I love even more how cliche it is that Wyoming fans know so much this and related topics. 

Energy is our livelihood and for many of us in Wyoming it is part of our careers. Most industries in Wyoming are somehow related with or connected to the energy sector.

[Billings]

1 hour ago, MetropolitanCowboy said:

Sounds like the various mines scattered around Montana.

Yep but in Montana the tax payer is footing the cleanup and several are superfund sites

[OrediggerPoke]

3 minutes ago, Billings said:

Thanks.  Now we need to feds to cover the wells on federal surface

Yes - that is all BLM and USFS.  The State of Wyoming does not have jurisdiction to commence reclamation operations on federal surface lands.

[Billings]

2 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

Energy is our livelihood and for many of us in Wyoming it is part of our careers. Most industries in Wyoming are somehow related with or connected to the energy sector.

Yea.  I worked in a bentonite plant for years and supplied many a drilling company.  Hell now it is in cat litter and that became a bigger customer than the drilling companies.  Drilling slowed and the plant slowed and layoffs began.  Cat litter to the rescue

[halfmanhalfbronco]

Just now, OrediggerPoke said:

Energy is our livelihood and for many of us in Wyoming it is part of our careers. Most industries in Wyoming are somehow related with or connected to the energy sector.

Oh for sure.  I just love how it is a cliche that holds up.  If you ask 100 Idahoans about the potato industry, 98 would know jack shit.  It's fascinating to read, as a comparatively uneducated outsider.  

[OrediggerPoke]

31 minutes ago, Billings said:

Yea.  I worked in a bentonite plant for years and supplied many a drilling company.  Hell now it is in cat litter and that became a bigger customer than the drilling companies.  Drilling slowed and the plant slowed and layoffs began.  Cat litter to the rescue

It’s funny because bentonites while a great industry for Wyoming and required for drilling is also one of the biggest curses to drilling in Wyoming.  Likely the most prolific formation in Wyoming in terms of oil and gas in place is very difficult to figure out and drill because it is loaded with bentonites.  The Mowry Shale has an unbelievable estimated oil and gas resource in the powder River basin but because it is a tight shale it must be fractured and the bentonites that were deposited as ash from volcanic activity during the Cretaceous in the Mowry are giving operators fits In trying to figure out how to keep their fractures from closing and to penetrate the bentonites.  

[Billings]

3 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

It’s funny because bentonites while a great industry for Wyoming and required for drilling is also one of the biggest curses to drilling in Wyoming.  Likely the most prolific formation in Wyoming in terms of oil and gas in place is very difficult to figure out and drill because it is loaded with bentonites.  The Mowry Shale has an unbelievable estimated oil and gas resource in the powder River basin but because it is a tight shale it must be fractured and the bentonites that were deposited as ash from volcanic activity during the Cretaceous in the Mowry are giving operators fits In trying to figure out how to keep their fractures from closing and to penetrate the bentonites.  

Damn stuff loves to absorb moisture.  I could understand their problem.   Heavy rain and the moisture only penetrates a few cm's. Slick as hell and really swells up.  I knew ranchers who lined short sections of their irrigation ditches with it as a poor man's concrete.  Greybull/big horn basin area does have rich bentonite reserves.  You must be looking in Weston or Crook Counties.  If I remember my geology, the bentonite was formed during the Idaho batholith formation.  ( I should look that up.  Had been a long time since geology classes at UW)