When I was in the Bakkan staying in a man camp run by Hess. I ate dinner with a geologist that said there were geologist that believed oil was actually a fossil fuel , and there was a growing number of geologist that believed it is inorganic and is constantly exuded by the earth's mantle and trapped under impermeable layers of rock . This is why when they uncapped many old dead wells to find they now produced more than they did when they were active back in the day . He said the reason they find DNA is that there is life everywhere on this planet and it's silly to think that a rich hydrocarbon would not have bacteria adapted to feeding on it .

White - same back to you for being a straight shooter and sharing your expertise and experience.

In fact thanks everyone who shares accurate info.

Well guys, another well going in. I took this photo today. This is the second well going in close to the last one. These wells are on the phase two section of the well pad. The first phase is full. After this well is finished, the drilling rig will travel approximately 4 miles to a waiting well pad where they will spud in 5-7 wells. Here in Ohio we are working hard to produce crude oil, natural gas, propane, butane, and other petroleum constituents. As I recently read - “We produce the energy to make the horsepower to run this Superpower”.



The body of knowledge about fossil fuels and the petroleum industry is extremely diverse, immense, and probably is not available to everyone who studies or works in the field.
Please understand that I do not mean that info is kept secret. What I mean is that there is so much knowledge that cannot practically be known by everyone. For example a geologist, petrochemical engineer, seismologist, helicopter pilot, hydro engineer, roughneck, trucker, security, refining, and more are all involved and have special knowledge and skills.

Hopefully this info will help others understand this business.

Where is the logic? If you have so much oil, why don't you produce it and sell it to other countries?

Great question! Maybe uncle Joe will chime in shortly?

LOL there is no logic.

Since we keep devaluing the Ruble it makes Russian oil cheap. So we buy yours.

Willy are there any of the small oil companies left after the oil glut/slump that started up in the fracking boom . The ones that had to pump cheap oil or go broke

I have a feeling you won't be able to buy it anytime soon.

This oil field is under parts of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The wells produce enormous quantities of oil and natural gas. The federal government will not approve a new interstate pipeline to send the oil or gas to a big market. Oil and gas must be moved by truck which is not very cost effective and adds significantly to the selling price.

These well produce wet gas - meaning high pressure gas that pushes some oil out of the ground with the gas. That passes through tanks so the oil can settle out of the gas. Note that this does not require any energy or a pump to get the oil out of the ground.

The amount of natural gas is immense. Of course the natural gas is used regionally. About 10 years ago a company built a state of the art electricity generating plant that runs on the local natural gas for which there is a short pipeline. It sends electricity into the grid.

KOSOI - personally I have no interest selling oil to foreigners until this country is again energy independent. At this point, I am concerned about energy supplies to meet needs that are local, then state, then regional, then national. When those needs are met and the strategic oil reserves are refilled, we could consider selling to friendly / allied countries.

Bigfoot - in this area I am not aware of any companies that did what you outline. There are small companies operating Clinton formation level wells. They have been around for a long time. Small companies do not have the capital to get into leasing, drilling wells and producing. There were a few companies leasing and got into production Rex Energy, Chesapeake, and Enervest. Enervest was a subsidiary of Chesapeake. Both Rex and Chesapeake went bankrupt and their assets were purchased and new companies started. Production from the wells can be controlled so they adjust production based upon price.

"In 2021, we oscillated between net imports and net exports on a month-to-month basis. In certain months, we were net importers (and hence, lost our “energy independence” per that definition). In other months, we were a significant net exporter.

What wasn’t clear was whether the U.S. would be a net exporter for the entire year of 2021. But the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently posted the numbers for December, and we now have an answer. Net exports grew each month from September through December to push the final average for the year to a net export number of 162,000 BPD. That is significantly down from 2020, but it is still energy independent according to the net export definition.

We had lost our energy independence several times on a monthly basis since May 2020. But, the full calendar years of 2020 and 2021 both turned out to be net export years. (I should note that sometimes the EIA revises these numbers, but it would take some pretty big revisions to change the energy independence status of 2021)."

I'm sure the U.S. will be exporting more LNG to Europe in 2022.

FYI: WV, OH, PA combined produce about 1 to 2% of U.S. crude oil.

Chesapeake and rex were ones I was thinking of maybe Mark West . it's been awhile . I don't remember all the names . They were drilling on credit and when things went south they went bankrupt and got bought out by bigger companies .

To address the OP., recoverable reserves in the United States are tens of billions of barrels compared to hundreds of billions of barrels in the Persian Gulf region. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.