Submitted Photo Neset Consulting Services Inc. founder Kathleen Neset poses on a wellsite rig on the Bakken oil fields in this undated photo.

Constants have been few and far between as the oil field boom of the Bakken Formation has ebbed and flowed in the last decade. Neset Consulting Services of Tioga and its founder Kathleen Neset have ridden every high and low since the business was established in 1980.

“We started with my late husband, Roy, and I. He was the operations, drilling hand. And I was the geologist. Over the years the geology built out and at times we were 100% geology,” Neset said. “In that lead up from about 2000 to 2003, we started realizing we couldn’t keep running this from the farm dining room table. That was about the time my family were like, ‘Mom we can’t even have Thanksgiving here. You’ve got too much stuff in here. Go find some place to work.'”

By the time the operation had moved into a home in Tioga and brought in an additional doublewide trailer, Neset said, horizontal drilling began to really take off on the Bakken, kicking off what was a mad rush to cash in on the latest boom. The activity reached its zenith around 2012, with Neset Consulting hitting its peak in volume and active geologists on the payroll. It also marked the groundbreaking for the business’s 28,000-square-foot facility in Tioga that serves as an office and shop and also includes a daycare facility.

“I remember people coming here totally unprepared. No home. No job. Family in the backseat of the car in Tioga, and it’s cold out. But you go to where we are now. We have new schools, new roads and highways, and the businesses are built out. There’s been tremendous, tremendous progress out here in western North Dakota,” Neset said. “I’m a believer in ‘keep reinventing yourself.’ What does our industry need? Right now, I’d say the bulk of our work is in the engineering and production side – keeping this oil field running from a maintenance standpoint.”

Neset explained the geology component of the work as the mapping of subdivisions of stratification within the Bakken Formation, both before and after a well has been drilled. This mapping makes a process called geosteering possible, which adjusts the placement of the well’s borehole based on data collected on the fly to maintain the ideal position within the formation.

Neset Consulting has ridden out the booms and busts of the industry for more than 40 years, a longevity that Neset said is achieved through being mindful of the industry’s evolving needs and ensuring the safety and competency for the wellsite workers.

“It’s all about the workforce. It’s really about the personnel. Over the years we’ve built up such a core group of young geologists and engineers. Now they’re moving into supervisory positions and continue to build out and replicate what they’ve been doing, and do more of it,” Neset said. “I remember somebody asking me ‘how did you plan all this out?’ I didn’t really plan it. As the oil industry built, Neset built. When it pulled back and the bust years came in, we pulled back and found a way to stay alive, but then we’re ready to ramp up and do it again.”

Neset believes automation will quickly begin impacting the industry, and in some ways already does, as Neset’s geosteering teams work remotely from Colorado and North Carolina. Neset pointed to positions in areas such as well site security as good opportunities for automation, which will reduce the number of individuals present on the work site.

“Every time you reduce people you, hopefully, improve your safety management and keep people safe. Let’s have as few people to do the job as we possibly can. They can steer those wells on a computer screen just as if they were sitting out there at that drill site. It’s safer for them,” Neset said. “We can in real time upload data about how fast they’re drilling and what kind of gas data they’re getting and send it directly to the oil company, sent to the geosteering team. That keeps the workers safer because he or she is not at the drill site. They are at home or in an office.”

Neset said she wasn’t opposed to introducing more renewable and green energy projects to the equation in the ever-evolving energy policy of the nation, but felt the industry shouldn’t turn away from traditional energy sources due to their reliability.

“I look at it as an additive rather than a transition to renewables. Let’s add the wind. Let’s add solar. Let’s get those in there. Let’s bring those out. But those aren’t base load power. They aren’t reliable base load. We should add them, and we do. But traditional baseload energy is going to be needed for decades to come,” Neset said.

Neset speculated that yet another major industry innovation is looming closer on the horizon than some might think, pointing to the potential of enhanced oil recovery techniques. Bakken wells currently only capture oil as it naturally flows up to the surface, with pumps being added after the flow has slowed, but Neset said at this point only 16% of the possible oil has been collected.

Neset said gas such as carbon dioxide or natural gas could be pumped into the well to help drive more of the deposit up, which she speculated could increase recovery up to 20-30%. Neset found great potential to pair the goals of enhanced oil recovery with carbon sequestration projects like the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.

“When we do that, it will be Bakken Boom Time all over again. Two or three years from now, and we have the capability to do enhanced oil recovery, we no longer put that CO2 underground. We now pump it down in the oil wells, and we get more oil out. We are now carbon-managed, and we produce the oil,” Neset said. “What we’re doing now with the pipelines is what will lead us to enhanced oil recovery. That’s the big prize out there.”