[Uriah_lost]

So, what do you make of this?
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Is it a lowball? Does “recoverable” take technology advancement into account?

[Smokin' Joe]

From the webpage "North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation"

It depends on what they mean as "undiscovered".

Yes, I see it as a lowball estimate. When you think about it, for them to revise previous estimates upward by a factor of 25 is pretty much for any Governmental Agency.

Now it is up to us to prove the estimate is low.

Their statement was "recoverable using current technology", and that is evolving from well to well, so no, future advancements are not taken into account..