Oil Pump Apache’s recent oil find highlights what could be a new phase in fracking. To date, fracking in the U.S. had really been all about taking explored basins and drilling new wells to get at previously untapped resources. That strategy worked well when oil prices were more than $80 a barrel. At today’s prices though, drilling the old style rigs in mostly depleted fields to get at residual layers of black gold is a money losing strategy. Apache’s find shows that money can be made by taking risks and looking for major new finds in areas that had been passed over previously. Apache Corporation has struck oil in a region that no one would have expected. The believed to be clay-ridden region of the Permian Basin surprisingly contains at least $8 billion in oil, and there could be more. For years geologists have explored and drilled down to […]