In November of 2012, Jimmy Goolsby, the head of a geologic consulting firm, Goolsby, Finley and Associates, based in Casper, Wyoming, gave a special presentation to an audience that was a mix of oil and gas industry representatives, and members of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. He started off his talk to this anxious crowd by stating “The Powder River Basin is going to be the best basin in Wyoming for producing oil.” Jimmy Goolsby himself credits this revived interest in Wyoming oil development with the research work being done at the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute at the University of Wyoming, which is helping the industry find new techniques for pulling harder to recover oil out of the ground.
Emerging oil and gas exploration company, Innocent, Inc. has picked the right time to begin development work on properties in the Wyoming Powder River Basin. When you look at the side of an excavated mountain, you may see sometimes what are referred to as ‘strata’ of rock. In other words, layers of sedimentary rock with internal characteristics that distinguish it from other layers. A structural basin is essentially an area of strata that has been warped over time by shifting tectonic plates and has the appearance of an inverted dome. The Powder River Basin is such a structural basin that is 120 miles East to West, and 200 miles north to south.
The Powder River Basin is actually best known for its low sulfur ‘sub-bituminous’ coal, and 40% of the billion tons of coal used in the United States comes from this region. On the geological time scale, the Powder River Basin would be considered young. About 60 million years ago, the basin floor was covered with swamps and lakes and essentially had a subtropical climate. Trees and other organic matter began building up on the basin floor and formed peat bogs under the fresh water. Sediments would wash down from nearby mountains and cover the peat and after 25 million years, the area became arid. Eventually the continuous pressure compressed the peat and formed coal. The low sulfur content is mainly due to the formation under fresh water. Coal from the Appalachian mountain regions has a much higher sulfur content because it was formed under ocean water. So for comparison, anthracite coal from the Appalachian Mountains began formation over 250 million years ago, while there was only one supercontinent, Pangea. What we know as the familiar shape of the North American continent, is only about 200 million years old, which is still young for an earth that is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old.
Most of the oil we use is formed by biogenic formation as well in a process similar to that of coal, and oil that was formed over the ‘younger’ time period of 60 million years tends to have a number of defining characteristics. Oil that is easily pumped up and the least viscous tends has formed over 100s of millions of years ago, and is under rock that is non-permeable and tightly sealed. A common way of defining that oil is by comparing how heavy or light that oil is to water, and the standard is the American Petroleum Institute gravity or API gravity. If the API gravity is greater than 10, the oil floats on water, and if less than 10, it is heavy oil that sinks in water. So the older oil tends to be light crude and described as having a high API gravity. The oil formations in areas such as the Powder River basin, are younger, have been under semi-permeable rock, and bacteria over the centuries have caused biodegradation, leaving the heavier hydrocarbons behind. The oil that Innocent, Inc. expects to extract will have a low API gravity, meaning it will be a very heavy crude and will be highly viscous. This means enhanced oil recovery techniques will have to be used to literally force the oil out of the ground. Innocent Inc. is quite prepared to utilize techniques such as gas, water, steam, or fire flooding to extract the oil.
Last year, the Powder River Basin was responsible for just over a third of Wyoming’s 60 million barrel output. Two oil companies, Anadarko Petroleum and Chesapeake Energy, that have operations in the Powder River Basin both increased oil production from that area. Innocent, Inc. is focusing on oil-bearing formations that are only 2,500 feet from the surface, and are looking at other prospects in the state of Wyoming as well. Innocent, Inc. is in the right region of the United States to successfully execute its business plan.
For more information on Innocent, visit: www.innocentinc.com
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