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 America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s 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 ...
Joe is the most knowledgeable one I know on this field. He has been involved there for a while.
Ping for his input.
Sorry.
Did a search on
oil, U.S. and turned up
NOTHING.
Isn’t that area known as The Bad Lands? The Libs will have to pass a law renaming it The Pristine lands.
Most of the east coast states have prohibited even looking so “who knows?” is correct.
Oil, oil everwhere,
Nor any drop to drill.
There’s over 2 trillion barrels sitting 175 miles off the gulf coast we can’t get to so there’s no way we’ll get to 500 billion dab smack on US soil.
Extraction costs become more recoverable as the per barrel price increases.
This is being hyped by $100/bbl but what will the producers do when the oil hits the market and the price goes down? Same thing they’ve down in the past, shut it in and wait for higher prices.
Dang!
Can’t they just relocate the buffalo herd to Ted Turner’s ranch in Montana? :-)
Your in-laws better watch out.
The govt will declare their farm “blighted” and take it right out from under them.
Here's the answer: repeal all gas tax, but add one: a $100/ barrel tariff on all imported oil.
I hope there are no polar bears in North Dakota.
Amen to that, seems to me we have an oil reserve up north that can't be used, just add this to the pile...
North and South Dakota, as well as eastern Montana is where this is reasoned to be.
I’ve been there. It ain’t pretty. Fact is mostly it sucks. It is depressed and could certainly use the jobs pulling oil out the ground there.
But you are probably right, if it is there the tree hugging greenpeace liberals from N.Y. and Rhode Island won’t allow us to get it.
All these negative comments will come true if we allow the libs to have their way here...I for one am tired of rolling over for these assets...
Actually, I think that a credible threat of real and massive US domestic oil exploration will cause OPEC to pump up production and drive down the price like a rock. I just don’t understand why we don’t do it.
First thing Obama or Hillary will do as president is declare it a national park/wildlife reserve.
Especially after President Hussein bans all combustible engines to solve the Global Warming problem in the first 100 days.
I wasn’t being a critic. Just pointing it out in case you might wonder why you won’t be getting a lot of posts on what is otherwise a very interesting topic.
It’s probably true, but the environmental whackos will find some reason to prevent any drilling. Any endangered mice in that area?
Just think of the CARBON! We can never use this oil! It’s for the children!
They're already starting to drill. The question is how much of the oil there is recoverable. Estimates vary widely between 1 and 50%, but remember that new technology is constantly being developed, including techniques to artificially fracture the rock. This is where the various "peak oil" theories have failed. They didn't account for the recoverable amount of oil increasing as new technology is developed.
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