I’d love to see what this study says about the possible production of the Green River Basin (mostly under Colorado, and about 98% under federal land) and the California shale formations that are both high in liquids, both huge (dwarfing Bakken and Eagle Ford, combined) and both unable to produce much if anything due to either state or federal refusal to allow production. THAT is the real story.
The Green River Basin hydrocarbons are oil shale or kerrogen. That’s a rock that has to be melted in order to yield out the oil. That process is much more expensive to produce oil than shale oil—which is the oil in the Bakken and the Eagle Ford and the Permian Basin. These are all on private lands.
The amount of recoverable oil in the Bakken has just been raised to about 40 billion barrels. The eagle Ford is currently at 15 billion barrels of oil and rising. The Permian basin’s many fields recoverable oil potential is unknown but the size and depth of the fields suggests that it could just dwarf everything everywhere.
These are the major shale oil plays but there are numerous others smaller plays around the country.
I just don’t think the significance of the current technological revolution in oil extraction has been fully realized. In any case the USA is headed toward energy abundance and oil exporter status.
That said, the Monterrey shale is a very fractured formation due to the continents colliding against each other. While the deposits there may be big—recoverable reserves may be a total sketch. Its too soon to tell.
THAT is the real story.
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The real story in the Green River basin is that the feds are not moving ahead with producing thorium reactors which would make electricity cheaply enough to allow for the cheap extraction of oil from oil shale.
(If the feds could get the Green River formation into production they would reap trillions of dollars in revenues. But alas they just can’t think things through.)