An Encana Corp. rig explores for oil south of Farmington. The company has drilled about 30 wells in the area.
(SW.EF! editor’s note: read this mainstream media article with a critical lens, it contains some pro-fracking propaganda.)
Swift and Huntington explore in Colorado
By Chuck Slothower, The Durango Herald
Encana Corp. plans to pour $250 million to $450 million into drilling oil wells on New Mexico’s side of the San Juan Basin next year, the company says.
The Canadian company has aggressively pursued San Juan Basin oil, drilling about 30 wells to date. The drilling is concentrated near Huerfano, N.M., southeast of Farmington.
“Our strategy really is to shift our portfolio more towards oil, so we’re really focusing on areas where we can do that, and the San Juan’s one of those,” said Doug Hock, a Denver-based spokesman for the company.
Encana plans to operate two to four drilling rigs in the area in 2014, according to a company presentation. The wells cost $4 million to $5 million each and have shown initial production rates of 400 to 500 barrels per day.
The San Juan historically has been one of the nation’s most productive natural-gas basins, but with prices low for that commodity and high for oil, drillers are finding oil in some previously overlooked areas.
Improved techniques for horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” have made such drilling possible.
Southwest Earth First! 