How do you go about drilling for gas and oil-

[eee]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( <font color="blue"> I think that oil and gas are pretty close to the surface in some places </font> )</font>

I think here in WV/Ohio a shallow well might be close to a 1000' give or take.

 

[Varmintmist]

A bunch of the rigs around here are no larger than a water well rig. A whole lot of pretty old stuff to. I saw a single guy, with a late 50's early 60's rig set up, drill, plumb and tank a oil well right next to one of out sites. These dont pump all of the time, the owners just pump some into the holding tank every month and a oil company truck comes by and pulls out of the tank.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Hope you have a bunch of money to waste because it is a lot more complicated than just knocking a hole in the ground. Statistically, only 1 well 10 is actually a producer and the payback period can be years. Your odds increase if you are in an oil producing area and are surrounded by other wells but I doubt that you are. If any of the field was under your property, you already would be recieving royalties. You don't actually need to have a well situated on your property to recieve royalties if the field is unitized, which most are.

Firstly, you have to own the mineral rights. Lots of people sell land but retain the mineral rights so just because you own the land doesn't mean you own the rights to any minerals under that land.

Secondly you need to find out if there is any chance of oil being there in the first place. The chance of drilling a hole and finding anything through blind luck is non existent unless you are Jed Clampett. That means hiring a geologist to map the place and depending on his opinion, shooting seismic and hiring a geophysical company to interpret the results. You've already spent a bunch of money and haven't drilled a foot yet.

If there is the possibility of something being there, it all depends on how deep it is and what pressure it is under. Deep, high pressure wells will cost anything from $2 million to $4 million and take 2/3 months to drill. The most expensive land well I drilled was in the Amazon jungle of Peru and cost $40 million ... and there wasn't enough there to be commercial. Now you know why gas costs so much. If it's real, real shallow and no pressure, you can probably get it drilled for about $50K in a few days. The rules and regs governing drilling for oil/gas vary from state to state and those can double or triple the drilling costs.

Then you have all the costs associated with testing and producing the stuff if you find anything worth keeping in the first place.

This is getting rather long, so let's just say that your chances of finding anything without experience or specialized training and knowledge is NIL.

What most small independents do is to find and develop a likely prospect, put together a package and try to sell that package to investors or larger oil companies with the resources to drill, retaining a percentage for themselves to cover their costs for the initial work and provide a profit if the well comes in.

Sorry to be so negative but all the easy stuff in the States was probably found a long time ago.

 

[eee]

The guy that drilled my water well I was told could drill a shallow oil/gas well. I would not mind having a well on my place,even a low producer would generate a few $$$$.

 

[sneaky_pete]

Frank is spot on. This is what I do for a living, and I would add a couple of comments:

Besides owning or leasing 100% of the minerals, you need to have a permit from the appropriate government agencies. Oil and gas drilling is highly regulated. You will need to have enough acres for a proration unit, typically 40 acres, but this depends on the depth of the reservoir and the state rules for the oil field your well will operate under.

Like Frank said, if it was easy and cheap, everyone would do it. It isn't - that's why diesel fuel costs so much. Plus, the potential liability is enormous. It takes deep pockets and lots of different kinds of expertise to drill for oil or gas.

Pete

 

[SPIKER]

I looked into thistoo:

I have on OUTDATED LEASE on my land, not paid or active in 20 yrs so it should be uaeable for me. BUT cost is not really wise investment.

there are wells less than 1 mile away and I have oil floating to top @ pretty much every sprine on the property. if there is a mud hole irt gets a skim of oil every time it washes up.

now I asked a few guys who do wells in my area they said ave cost to 1k feet was about 70K ( 3 yrs back cost now) each 1K after that price about tripples (this is a LOW COST LOW PRESSURE TYPE) if you want to look DEEP then in ohio you have to have XX amount of acres per 1000 feet of depth (I think it was 10 acres min and for every 1k down farther it required 10~20 acers more) this was all ONTOP of the cost of the serveying and such.

anyhow just my experiance...


MarkM

 

[TBAR]

6800 foot wells takes a decent size pump jack.


TBAR

 

[plumboy]

Thanks for the post guys.I'm going to keep researching this,I have contacted uk.It'll give me something to read up on this winter.I am talking to some people with experience around here and as interesting as it is cant help but notice that one well each tells about,kinda like the big fish story.Good stuff.

 

[Alan L.]

Around here oil wells are thousands of feet deep and cost $500,000 to $1,000,000 to drill. If an oil company hasn't been knocking on your door to get a lease, there's probably not any oil there (or gas). If they do, then they will incur all of the cost, you'll get some money up front and probably 1/8 of the production. But there would be no risk to you.

 

[plumboy]

It just seems like too many people need to make the big bucks off of oil and gas and have ran the price up through history like unions.I could understand 15-25 bucks a foot for a small well,but a mil is rediculous money.Too many hands in the cookie jar.Still its safer and easier to drill around everyone else pumping already where nobody owns minerals.