For Whiting Petroleum Corp., October 2010 marked a turning point. The Denver-based company was deep into its Bakken program in the North Dakota portion of the Willis-ton Basin, and questions were mounting faster than answers. The Bakken was a unique reservoir and nothing like it had been developed before. This was an oil play in shale, and many in the industry were not convinced that oil could be successfully produced from shales.

Whiting was attacking the Bakken problem with science: pulling lots of core on its wells in Sanish Field, ...