Posted on 05/15/2008 6:25:17 PM PDT by mondoreb
HUGE Oil Field in Montana is Good News for Consumers --Which Makes it Unpalatable for the Mainstream Media
While Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, fears for the future of oil supplies after 2015--maybe he's confusing Shell's oil supply with the rest of the world's--Newsmax has just released information on the HUGE oil discovery in Montana: the Williston Basin or "Bakken" field.
About 470 miles outside the state capitol of Helena - in a place called Richland County, Montana - more millionaires are being created per capita than anywhere else in America.As one can see from the map below, before the 'Bakken' discovery, the U.S. was still a major oil producer--it is just a major consumer, also.It's the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, Montana is looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
* "When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
---
For years, U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the "Big Oil" companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels.
And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
(Excerpt) Read more at deathby1000papercuts.com ...
Thanx for the info. I’ll be searching for more sources on this now. The “400 billion” came from the Newsmax information. Thanx for the heads-up.
The article you reference appears to be a well-reasoned scientific analysis by someone that knows what they're talking about.
Therefore I doubt it will be very popular here. People are far more interested in fantasy optimistic nonsense when it comes to oil.
From Wikipedia (I know also not the most reliable source):
In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion.[14] Later that month, the state of North Dakota's report [15] estimated that of the 167 billion barrels of oil in-place in the North Dakota portion of the Bakken, 2.1 billion barrels were technically recoverable with current technology.
Numbers are all over the map, probably because the oil is of two types, free oil, pumpable by deep well technology and shale oil, extractable via expensive extraction methods.
“People are far more interested in fantasy optimistic nonsense when it comes to oil.”
You mean that YouTube video where a guy runs a car on water isn’t true either?!?!? You know, the guy who died suddenly, which proves that the technology worked?
(ducking for cover)
I first heard about this Baaken field about 2 months ago. The other posters above are correct in saying that the new method of horizontal drilling is making this oil accesible, but it’s been known about for 50 years.
I did quite a bit of homework on what companies were involved in drilling there and bought stock in what I considered the 4 best plays there. I bought BEXP, NOG, KOG and TEC, all of which trade in the US on the AMEX. It’s been pretty close to a home run play in a short amount of time. I’ve taken down a lot of profit and am still holding a smaller core position. It’s unclear to me at this time how much of this is pure hype or pump and dump on these stocks and what the eventual outcome will be.
The estimates of a potential 400 billion barrels are reliable, what’s not reliable is how much of that is economically feasible to extract.
BUMP!
BUMP!
State Bakken estimate released
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/514666.html?nav=5010
Group Looks at Oil Extraction Option
http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=18059
Minot is rockin' with talk of Bakken
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/04/29/news/topnews/154395.txt
feel better already.
and politics. and just about everything else.
Bakken Formation Survey Is Out
The very first story I read about the Bakken Formation was in the NYTimes of January 1. 2008:
Estimates have ranged wildly, said Julie LeFever, a geologist with the North Dakota Geological Survey, but many scientists suspect that the Bakken may contain 200 billion barrels of oil — significantly more, for instance, than the much debated field in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Still more in doubt, though, is how much trapped oil can be recovered. (emphasis added)200 Billion barrels of oil! That caught my attention.
Then the Dakota Voice wrote on April 6, 2008:
The US Geological Survey is about to release a new report on the Bakken Formation, an oil deposit that spans areas of North and South Dakota and parts of Montana. The report will specify accurate assessments of the oil reserve that is currently estimated to contain up to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If true, this will expand the known oil reserves of the U.S. up to ten times the known capacity to date. (emphasis added)Well, the report from the USGS is out, hat tip to Instapundit and Next Big Future
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin Province, Montana and North Dakota. (emphasis added)3.65 Billion barrels is a far cry from 500 billion barrels, but it does increase our proved reserves from 42 billion barrels to 45 billion barrels a 6.7% increase. Some may find the USGS report extremely disappointing. However, The USGS press release of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation is 25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate. As more wells are drilled with the new technology available, expect to see estimates move much higher.
Russia is (or the USSR was) the second largest exporter of oil. That's one dictatorship, not a cabal of excitable, egotistical arabs.
The problem with oil in our age is communism, not OPEC.
A breakthrough in battery design will make oil only used for lubrication.
“I thought it was mainly North Dakota.....and funny that we’ve heard little about this actual site since the report came out a few weeks ago....I am wondering if there is more bluster than bombshell...”
It’s odd that we’ve had several threads on the Bakken find at FR, but all I’ve noticed before located it in North Dakota, mentioning 200 - 300 billion barrels, with much less recoverable.
Now, we have a report of 500 billion barrels in Montana, I assume they’re talking about the same find, and all these estimated barrels are for the same filed. Saw no mention of ND in this article.
I think a good number of reporters are writing about this, and most are not very knowledgeable on the subject of crude oil finds.
Does anyone else share my theory that the Earth is still creating oil?
“somebody’s gonna discover trillion barrel field about 8 miles down one of these days.”
Ideally, about 10-15 miles off the Florida coast.
It’s true.......
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