Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

Next Energy News ^ | 2-13-08 | unknown

[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

[unkus]

There are endangered mouse fleas. Sorry, America.

[San Jacinto]

Let's make these allah-worshipping, head-sawing, child-sacrificing death-cultists run out of oil and come hat-in-hand begging for some of that food we're just throwing away.

Fine, but it might take too long. I'd like to see them cut off tomorrow if we could do so.

[isrul]

If it's true, you can count on the next administration to find a reason to prevent its extraction.

[caisson71]

Demanding that competitor while prohibiting extraction of current known oil reserves is one of our problems with energy. At $100/bbl for oil should intensify the R&D for oil’s alternative. Still, no real alternative is found. We need to free up our known resources for drilling, make Chavez and other world leaders get down on their knees.

[xone]

'I’ve been there. It ain’t pretty. Fact is mostly it sucks.'

I lived there, it ain't the mountains, but the plains has its own beauty.

It is depressed and could certainly use the jobs pulling oil out the ground there.

No doubt about this. The libs will have to come from out of state to stop this. In-staters would be flogged because of the economics.

[unkus]

Something like creating a preserve in Utah so we had to buy fron his pal Riadi in Indonesia?

[Pharmer]

Sorry, we canÂ’t do this. It would disturb the habitat of the Swahili Bucktoothed Titmouse

You mean this??

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Beaky_Buzzard.jpg‎

[steve8714]

You forgot the endangered Greater kitchen grouse.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

usually takes more energy (hot water) to heat the stuff up and get it moving than is economically justified. It’s the same as trying to get the bacon grease down the trap. Hot water makes the job easy. Otherwise, pretty much impossible. Cold water (which is the case ambiently in N Dakota) = locked to whatever it’s sticking to. Please play again. The ME is wonderful for oil because it’s hotter than hell :).

You better tell that to the Canadians who have been pumping it in Alberta (due north) all these years.

*rolls eyes*

[avacado]

"Does anyone know if this is true?"

There is oil there but how much will require a new seismic survey with the latest technology to determine how extensively distributed the oil is. The US has been drilling in the Bakken formation since the year 2000 and it produces light sweet crude. How much is really there will need an extensive seismic survey.

[a real Sheila]

I wonder just how much was his payoff on that particular deal. Why can’t it be reversed...ever?

[Stentor]

Hot water makes the job easy.

Any flowing water in the area? Sounds like a good use for nuclear power generation byproduct.

[thackney]

A good brief summary of the field can be found here.

Technology-Based Oil and Natural Gas Plays:
Shale Shock! Could There Be Billions in the Bakken?
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/ngshock.pdf

Modern drilling with techniques like horizontal drilling, fracturing, and completion technologies have made this produceable.

[steve8714]

Is it close enough to Yellowstone to use geothermal to heat the water to soften it?

[Uncledave]

They’ve figured out how to pump it profitably out of Alaska at a lot lower than $100/bb.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

I have no confidence that it will ever be used, however.

It'll be used... by the Union of North American Socialist Republics. Or whatever it's going to be called when the country's lost.

[kidd]

wikipedia:

The formation consists of three members: lower shale, middle dolomite, and upper shale. The shales were deposited in relatively deep marine conditions, and the dolomite was deposited as a coastal carbonate bank during a time of shallower water. The middle dolomite member is the principal oil reservoir, roughly two miles below the surface.

Porosities in the Bakken average about 5%, and permeabilities are very low, averaging 0.04 millidarcies—much lower than typical oil reservoirs.[2] However, the presence of horizontal fractures makes the Bakken an excellent candidate for horizontal drilling techniques in which a well drills along the extent of the rock layer, rather than punching a hole vertically through it. In this way, many thousands of feet of oil reservoir rock can be penetrated in a unit that reaches a maximum thickness of only about 140 feet.[3] Production is also enhanced by artificially fracturing the rock.[4]

The greatest Bakken oil production comes from Elm Coulee Oil Field, Richland County, Montana, where production began in 2000 and is expected to ultimately total 270 million barrels. In 2007, production from Elm Coulee averaged 53,000 barrels per day, more than the entire state of Montana a few years ago.[5]

New curiosity developed in 2007 when EOG Resources out of Houston, Texas reported that a single well it had drilled into an oil-rich layer of shale below Parshall, North Dakota is anticipated to produce 700,000 barrels of oil. Estimates for ultimate oil contained in the entire Bakken play range from 271 billion to 503 billion barrels, with a mean of 413 billion barrels of technically recoverable and irrecoverable oil.[6]

This massive estimate appears to dwarf the estimated 50 billion to 70 billion barrels of technically recoverable and irrecoverable oil in Alaska’s North Slope. A conservative estimate of Bakken’s technically recoverable oil would be 1% to 3% percent, or between 4.1 and 12.4 billion barrels of oil, due to the fact that Bakken’s shale is so tight. However, other estimates range from 10% to as high as 50% technically recoverable reserves. [7] By comparison, recoverable oil estimates in the Alaska formation are 30% to 50%, or a mean of 26 billion barrels. There are reports that the US Geological Survey plans to re-evaluate the size of the oil reserves in 2008.

[bioqubit]

you have to search on “Bakken formation”

[thackney]

usually takes more energy (hot water) to heat the stuff up and get it moving than is economically justified

Not the same stuff.

The Bakken Formation is an overpressured, often oil-wet, formation with 41 degree API gravity crude oil resident in its natural fractures that is capable of producing at high production rates.

[thackney]

Too bad we won’t see anything from this for decades.

Some of it is already in production.