Oil field possible near Bear Butte

OFF THE WIRE
First, come Alpha Biker commentary... So, I guess we'll add another stop to the list... Mount Rushmore, Needles Highway, Crazy Horse, Devil's Tower, Hulett for no Panty Wednesday, and now "The Great Oil fields of Bear Butte". Now, I am not overly philosphically opposed to such a thing.... buttttt... after the grief that bikers got for their once a year pilgrimmage to some outdoor bars near "sacred lands"... the bullshit meter is redlining.

PIERRE — Developers plan to drill oil wells in a place that is unusual geologically and is next door to one of South Dakota’s most culturally sensitive landmarks.
Bear Butte, for centuries a gathering place and religious shrine for Plains Indians, would be 1.25 miles from the new Gullickson Field.
The giant uplift of igneous rock is also home to a state park.

By: Bob Mercer, Republic Capitol Bureau

PIERRE — Developers plan to drill oil wells in a place that is unusual geologically and is next door to one of South Dakota’s most culturally sensitive landmarks.
Bear Butte, for centuries a gathering place and religious shrine for Plains Indians, would be 1.25 miles from the new Gullickson Field.
The giant uplift of igneous rock is also home to a state park.
Meade County isn’t one of the spots where oil is commercially produced in South Dakota.
The state Board of Minerals and Environment approved an application Thursday from Nakota Energy to drill wells on 40-acre parcels. The permit covers 960 acres.
A prospecting firm, Inyan Kara Group, based in Rapid City, is actually leading the Gullickson project.
Inyan Kara Group president Anthony Petres previously worked in the oil and gas section of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
He told the state board Thursday that two wells are planned as the first stage of development but left the door open to many more dotting the site, which is on private land.
The field is on the butte’s west side. There are indications oil could be present on the east side, too, he said. There are oil seeps that naturally occur around the butte.
Petres said the oil is at depths as shallow as 500 feet and that it came from somewhere else much deeper where pressure is sufficient to form liquid oil.
“It’s a cinch it’s coming from deeper,” Petres said. “Eventually, someone needs to drill a deeper well to find the source.”
He estimated there are about 6 million barrels of oil at the shallow depths and 4 million barrels are recoverable.
Both Petres and lawyer Scott Sumner emphasized that the 40-acre spacing is temporary until more is known about the field. They said wells eventually could be spaced as tightly as 10 acres apart.
The field is named after a rancher who came up dry on a well for water there in 1927 and ran into oil instead.
That fact appeared in an old geological bulletin from the time.
Inyan Kara Group formed in 1996 and entered into a contract with Wyoming Resources to drill a well in the Gullickson Field.
Wyoming Resources decided after sinking the well to give the prospect back to Inyan Kara Group.
Nakota Energy drilled a well there in September this year. Nakota Energy operates from Littleton, Colorado, and is registered as a limited liability company in Wyoming.
No one from the company attended the state board meeting Thursday.
One set of landowners went to the meeting and spoke about the need to protect groundwater.
The second well would be on property bought seven years ago by that couple, Mark Norstegaard and Janeen Walker-Norstegaard, of Sturgis.
“I’m excited about the prospect of oil, but I’m concerned the water is protected,” she told the board.
Petres testified to the board that the aquifer has been eroded away and where it still exists is far above the oil.
Bear Butte has been the center of controversies in the past over a proposed firearms-testing range and new rural bars that cater to bikers during the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally and races. During those controversies, American Indians and others have tried to protect Bear Butte from encroaching development.
No one filed to intervene or attended the board meeting Thursday to speak against the oil field application.