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USGS Assesses Bakken Formation to Hold 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels...25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate
www.greencarcongress.com ^ | 04/11/2008 | Staff

Posted on 04/11/2008 7:15:35 AM PDT by Red Badger

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To: Red Badger

The oil business news is not mainstream newsworthy. The price of gasoline is newsworthy sometimes but the business itself not except when O’Bama or some other mouth notes the obscene profits.


41 posted on 04/11/2008 7:46:52 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: All

BUMP

does anyone know if we have any FNC or CNN lurkers still?


42 posted on 04/11/2008 7:47:48 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: count-your-change
"Where did hear estimates of “500 billion barrels”? "

There have been research papers presented over the years with those types of estimates. Just Google: "bakken formation"

"And why is 4 to 5 billion barrels “sad”?"

4 billion divide by 500 billion times 100 = 0.8%
That not even 1% recovery of a potential 500 billion barrels. That's sad, or at least very unfortunate.

"Would a trillion barrels be sad just because someone thought there should be a thousand times that? Really don’t see any reason for “sad”."

Let's not get off into outer space and let's stick to the Bakken Formation as the discussion. Less than 1% recovery is not much.

43 posted on 04/11/2008 7:48:01 AM PDT by avacado
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To: avacado

Sure, but the data must be acquired. Absence of data does not imply presence of oil.


44 posted on 04/11/2008 7:48:31 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: Red Badger

For scale:

4 Billion bbls here

6 Billion bbls used in US per YEAR


45 posted on 04/11/2008 7:48:59 AM PDT by sam_paine (X .................................)
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To: Red Badger

Probably because it is good news.


46 posted on 04/11/2008 7:49:55 AM PDT by Piquaboy (22 year veteran of the Army, Air Force and Navy, Pray for all our military .)
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To: RightWhale
"Sure, but the data must be acquired. Absence of data does not imply presence of oil."

Huh? Not sure what you are trying to say. Which data? The 1980s seismic data or seismic data from today? The 1980s unprocessed raw data would be quite inferior to today's data.

47 posted on 04/11/2008 7:50:49 AM PDT by avacado
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To: avacado

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold. The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.


48 posted on 04/11/2008 7:51:47 AM PDT by CPT Clay (Drill ANWR, Personal Accounts NOW , Vote Hunter in the Primary)
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To: avacado

Yes, I had read articles with similar high numbers for oil as well. Not sure if this was a factor in those high numbers, but it may have to do with gas to liquid technology and the fact there is 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the formation.

Here is a link to a short article in Wikipedia on the gas to liquid technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids

Click the process word hotlinks to see the chemistry involved. Futher information is available through the links as the foot of the article.

What I would like to know is how many cubic feet of natural gas is required to produce a gallon of gasoline.

(For example, if it takes 100 cuft of NG to produce a gallon of fuel, then 1.85 trillion cuft = 18.5 billion gallons of gasoline. (BTW 3.65 billion barrels of oil at the standard cracking ratio of 22 gallons of gasoline per 40 gallon barrel of oil stock = 80.3 billion gallons of gasoline.))

The process word hotlinks provide the chemical formulas but it’s been forty years since I took chemistry in high school. (For God’s sakes, Jim! I’m a history major, not a chemist!)


49 posted on 04/11/2008 7:52:43 AM PDT by Captain Rhino ( If we have the WILL to do it, there is nothing built in China that we cannot do without.)
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To: AngelesCrestHighway
Good luck getting past the damn socialists who will declare the whole area an endagered habitat for the purple speckled warble whacker.....

Or.... the lavender knob gobbler.

50 posted on 04/11/2008 7:53:09 AM PDT by dearolddad (Opinions are like rectums: everybody has one.)
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To: CPT Clay
USGS is always conservative. Last time I checked, Prudhoe Bay recovery has been somewhere north of 3-4 times what the USGS initially forecasted, and its still going strong.

I suspect the same will happen here, but we have a long way to go before we'll really know.

51 posted on 04/11/2008 7:53:57 AM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (One by one, in small groups or in whole armies, we don't care how we do it, but we're gonna getcha)
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To: Red Badger

Hopefully, someday the eco-nut will be an endangered species.


52 posted on 04/11/2008 7:56:10 AM PDT by ConservaTexan (February 6, 1911)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Only nine? I’m sure the enviro-nazis will come up with a few more.


53 posted on 04/11/2008 7:58:46 AM PDT by CedarDave (John, When will you respect conservatives the way you do fellow senators Barack, Hillary and JohnK?)
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To: Red Badger

Didn’t Obama promise if elected, to put a moratorium on drilling in this environmentally sensitive area?


54 posted on 04/11/2008 7:59:11 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what an Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: doc30

He most likely wants to NATIONALIZE the petroleum industry, like his buddies Chavez in Venezuela and Mugabe in Zimbabwe.....


55 posted on 04/11/2008 8:00:54 AM PDT by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: Piquaboy
Well, some of us have known about it for a while (I worked some of the very first Bakken horizontal wells in Elm Coulee Field).

Getting the media to say something good about the oil industry is about the same as getting them to say something good about the military. If it is good news, they usually won't report it.

Doing so would really interfere with the whole "Evil BIG Oil not producing oil so it can rape consumers" gig.

56 posted on 04/11/2008 8:03:35 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: JustDoItAlways

So this report is only counting the recoverable oil? Also, it said this was “undiscovered”, so how much was discovered previously and not included?


57 posted on 04/11/2008 8:04:08 AM PDT by lesser_satan (Vote McCain - The Choice who Sucks Less!)
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To: BOBTHENAILER

You are correct, we have only just begun to explore the region’s potential.

We were sent on one well in the Keene area, and it turned out so huge, that we will be there for years to come. There are also 40 new rigs coming into the basin this year. Drilling is not cheap here, but the potential will offset the higher drilling costs.

Refining capability is the next obstacle that will determine the drilling effort for the future.


58 posted on 04/11/2008 8:05:16 AM PDT by PSYCHO-FREEP (Juan McCain....The lesser of Three Liberals.")
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To: RightWhale

What? Did he have leprosy or something?

Oh, you said “penniless”...


59 posted on 04/11/2008 8:07:30 AM PDT by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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To: Red Badger

Don’t know about the MSM, but it hasn’t been news here; there have been sixteen articles posted on FR the past couple of weeks:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/bakken/index


60 posted on 04/11/2008 8:07:44 AM PDT by CedarDave (John, When will you respect conservatives the way you do fellow senators Barack, Hillary and JohnK?)
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