Black Ridge Oil Co. with Ken DeCubellis & 3T

Our Program on July 15th was a presentation by Ken DeCubellis, the CEO of Black Ridge Oil Company. Black Ridge is a local company involved in the North Dakota oil fields, holding leasing rights to over 10,000 acres in the area.

            His talk was designed to give us a basic knowledge of “fracking” and “horizontal drilling”. Horizontal drilling is the key to the value in the Bakken and Three Forks oil fields. Horizontal drilling is a new concept, thought by some in the oil industry to be as important a discovery in the oil industry as the transistor was in electronics.

            The well begins in the standard manner, drilling downward. After passing the water-strata, the well shifts 90 degrees, boring parallel to the surface. When dealing with oil found in shale, it is the only economical and reasonable type of well to use. Fracking is the method used to extract the oil, forcing sand into the strata which pushes out the oil.  Ken had a short movie that described the processes used, and it is available on line at www.blackridgeoil.com.

 

Thirsty Thursday was held on July 17th at Excelsior Brewing Co. with 11 members taking part at some point in the evening and a good time was had by all!