Posted on 07/14/2008 7:21:44 AM PDT by SMARTY
News Release
April 10, 2008 Clarice Nassif Ransom 703-648-4299 cransom@usgs.gov
David Ozman 720-244-4543 dozman@usgs.gov
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3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.
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3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Oil in North Dakota and Montana
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Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.
New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.
The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.
The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.
"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."
The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.
USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.
Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.
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.
Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.
For a podcast interview with scientists about the Bakken Formation, listen to episode 38 of CoreCast at http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/.
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Republicans hope the answer is yes. Democrats hope the answer is no. The envirofascists hope they can sue if Federal Court to stop any further exploration so that we never find out for sure.
My sister is in ND and claims rigs are going up like crazy.
People are literally becoming millionaires overnight
Keep up the great work North Dakota
We admire you.
Thanks mouse. With gas prices at 4.50 it is nice to have some good news! :)
“Domestic drilling is off the table.” — Sen. Harry Reid
My father owns 1000 acres in North Dakota! Only thing is it’s in the eastern part of the state. Bummer. However, I still hold out hope.
Need to start drilling operations ASAP. If Barak gets in, he will declare it a national monument (ala Clinton), then get a payoff from Indonesia.
Wonder if this throws a monkey wrench into T Boone Pickens’ neo liberal solar\wind\natural gas fantasy program for energy independence. We have recoverable reserves now for 60 years+ with oil we can already get out and profitable turn into fuel WIHTOUT any importation. So the old coots like Pickens need to STFU and get out of the way and stop with all the canards to enrich themselves.
Its the government stupid
“Domestic drilling is off the table.”
Given the current US position vis-à-vis oil producing countries and our involvement in the war on terror, it strikes me that any public official who makes this statement, immediately and permanently debars himself/herself from further meaningful discussion on U.S. trade, foreign policy, war on terror or economic matters.
Any responsible official working to prohibit the domestic resolution of U.S. energy problems is holding this country’s military and economy hostage to their arrogance, selfishness and elitism. Because believe me… asking 82 year old retirees to ruin themselves just to heat their homes, or making young people go half way across the globe to bleed and die so we can assure stability of our energy source, IS supremely and unarguably elitist!!!
"The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels"
By Thomas Gold [Forward by Freeman Dyson]
"The leading supporter of the abiotic theory in the U.S. is Prof. Thomas Gold of Cornell. His 1999 book, The Deep Hot Biosphere (Springer-Verlag) is a thorough discussion of the issues. It is based in part on research financed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Among prominent scientists whose work supports the abiotic theory are Jean Whelan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Mahlon Kennicutt of Texas A&M University, and J.F Kenny of the Gas Resources Corporation." - http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4092
"There is much to be said about this important book. Gold exhibits the irreversible and universal genius that we recognize in Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci. The versatility and range of knowledge exhibited is remarkable. The Deep Hot Biosphere is a highly interesting and important book; it should be required reading for every geology student." (David Deming, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 17 (2), 2003)
"Thomas Gold is a physicist who is not afraid of controversy. His big new theory is that oil and natural gas are produced by geology and chemistry of the hot deep layers below the Earth's surface. The book is the best kind of science writing: contentious and passionate, with all the evidence there for you to weigh up." (New Scientist, August, 2001)
It appears as if the Russians are making monkeys out of us westerners. They now have over 300 ultra deep oil wells producing oil from as far down as 40,000 feet. Way beyond any possibility of finding sludge from dead dinosaurs and old rotting cabbage patches. Russia is now the world's #1 oil producer handily surpassing Saudi Arabia. Speaking Of Saudi Arabia - known reserve estimates there have been increased yet again.
The skeptics continue to amuse and embarrass themselves as Viet Nam now joins the club of oil producing nations pumping from areas western "experts" proclaimed oil-free based on geology.
Eugene Island is an underwater mountain located about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. It is refilling itself from deep fissures.
Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute assigned to study the Eugene field. Becoming familiar with the phenomenon, she said " . . .. I believe there is a huge system of oil just migrating deep underground"
By every measure - known oil reserves are INCREASING despite vastly increased demand.
In Colorado, our new energy economy governor, state legislators, and Senators fight to stop oil shale development, a much larger source of oil. They are now openly talking about higher taxes on the oil and natural gas industries to cover for the fraud of the new energy economy.
What’s the difference between “technically recoverable” and “practically recoverable”?
And luckily for many of them, they came into the land via probate.
Which would give us enough time to finish construction of a whole bunch of nuke plants (which should be started THIS YEAR). In 10 years we should also have good enough batteries that we could have electric cars with decent range
With enough nuke power, we could heat our homes and run our vehicles on nuke electric and not be reliant on fossil fuel so much
The oil referenced in Bakken Reserve in this topic is already separated from the shale and produced by drilling, not heating or otherwise processing the shale.
Perhaps after the drilling and pumping is complete, operations like those described in the Rand Report can go after the remaining couple hundred billion barrels.
I can only guess that ‘practically recoverable’ means anything from pending licensing to work-in-progress. I am probably wrong in that.
Here's a little something to brighten your day
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