Posted on 03/28/2008 9:59:13 AM PDT by a real Sheila
America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost Americas Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPECs short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.
In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated
(Excerpt) Read more at nextenergynews.com ...
“there”, not “their”. =/
I wouldn’t be against drilling everything we have. I just want to see oil have a real competitor.
Do we get to keep it here in the USA or does it go on the world market
Don't get your hopes up. We buy most of our oil from Canada and Mexico, anyway. The Chinese and Indians will be buying all that Middle Eastern oil. The Saudis probably wouldn't even miss our not buying any.
Would it be available in time to mitigate another oil shock if we found it necessary to attack Iran? And would it be enough? Refinery capacity takes years. What are the capacities of the Utah refineries and is it possible to get it there?
I think you’re thinking of the coal that x42 locked up by declaring the area a National Park or Reserve, or something. The Clintons don’t own it; it’s a government owned property, but x42 did it to bolster his Indonesian buddy, who owned the next largest deposit of that coal, and for which the Utah deposit would have been a direct competitor.
Who are these damn green idiots and who are they to stop drilling in the US. We should get names and start badgering them like they badger our troops and anyone else that has one more brain cell then them! We should go ahead and drill and if they lay on the highways to stop us we should just roll over them and consider it a good day!
Oil reserves are like potential. Useless unless you ese them.
“First thing Obama or Hillary will do as president is declare it a national park/wildlife reserve.”
Bill Clinton declared a national monument in Utah. This put a whole bunch of coal off-line and made a fortune for his buddy Riady.
Not true. Canada is our biggest individual supplier, Saudi Arabia is next. Mexico is third. OPEC is a much bigger supplier to the US than Canada and Mexico combined.
U.S. Crude Oil Imports by Country of Origin
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
Anybody know what interest we actually owe them currently on their securities and notes they hold?
That’s true, but if really huge new sources were developed outside of OPEC, the law of supply and demand dictates the price would drop.
We import no oil from Iran. However, upsetting Iran exports would effect world markets as those currently receiving their oil would try to buy others. Iran exports 2.5 MMBPD. I don't know that North Dakota will ever hit that rate. They certainly won't in the next decade.
Refinery capacity takes years. What are the capacities of the Utah refineries
Utah has less than 1% of our nations refining capacity. I suspect it has 0% spare capacity at this time.
and is it possible to get it there?
Possible to move a little that dirrection but there is very little spare capacity and no benefit if it did get there. Utah is not a supplier to the rest of the US of refined products. You need to replace any oil that was displaced, like from the West and Gulf coast.
The lead singer in Rev. Wrights Church?..
Translation from Arabic of course..
You know about 40 nuclear reactors would do this as well. You'd think that some governor in SD / ND or Montana would want to collect a boatload of free taxes by allowing some of the states most useless land to be used to host all of these as well.
Liberals won’t let anyone get anywhere near this oil because they WANT us to be slaves to the rest of the world. They think we deserved to be punished.
ND and SD are in the 8th circuit, fortunately. Montana is in the 9th.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.