Posted on 03/12/2010 9:35:39 PM PST by chicken head
OIL - you better sit down.
Here's an interesting read, important and verifiable information :
About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest. The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together." Please read below.
The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS out: http://bakkenshale.net/bakkenshalemap.html
The Bakken is 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, we're 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.
"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.. 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 2041 years straight. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006!
U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:
- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy.....WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention yet? Now, while you're thinking about it, do this:
Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you complain about gas prices - by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.
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Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.
By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!!!
GOOGLE it, or follow this link. It will blow your mind.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 >
No mention of the oil shale we have in large quanities?
Next time you step on a glob of tar on a beach in Santa Barbara County, you can thank the oil companies that it isn't a bigger glob.
The same is true around the world, on other beaches where off-shore oil drilling occurs, say scientists, although Santa Barbara's oil seeps are thought to be among the leakiest. Natural seepage of hydrocarbons from the ocean floor in the northern Santa Barbara Channel has been significantly reduced by oil production, according to two recently published peer-reviewed articles, one in November's Geology Magazine, the other in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans.
The Santa Barbara Channel provides an excellent natural laboratory, as it is among the areas with the highest levels of seepage in the world, said co-author Bruce P. Luyendyk, professor and chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The studies were not funded by oil companies, but rather by the University of California Energy Institute and the U.S. Minerals Management Service, states Luyendyk, responding to the fact that the results favor off-shore oil production and are opposed by some environmentalists.
"We've done a good piece of science," said Luyendyk. "We've developed a good understanding of a natural process. It's all public data; it's all straightforward. If I thought the study was compromised I wouldn't be involved in it." Most of the seepage is methane, a potent greenhouse gas which escapes into the atmosphere, said Luyendyk.
About 10 percent of the seepage is composed of "higher hydrocarbons," or reactive organic gases which interact with tailpipe emissions and sunlight, creating air pollution. The researchers state that the production rate of these naturally-occurring reactive organic gases is equal to twice the emission rate from all the on-road vehicle traffic in Santa Barbara County in 1990.
According to the articles, studies of the area around Platform Holly showed a 50 percent decrease in natural seepage over 22 years. The researchers show that as the oil was pumped out the reservoir, pressure that drives the seepage dropped. "If the decrease in natural seepage found near Platform Holly is representative of the effect of oil production on seepage worldwide, then this has the potential to significantly alter global oil and gas seepage in the future," state the researchers in the article "The World's Most Spectacular Marine Hydrocarbon Seeps: Quantification of Emissions " in the Sept. 14 issue of the Journal of Geological Research - Oceans. They continue, "For example if the 50 percent reduction in natural seepage rate that occurred around Platform Holly also occurred due to future oil production from the oil field beneath the La Goleta seep, this would result in a reduction in nonmethane hydrocarbon emission rates equivalent to removing half of the on-road vehicle traffic from Santa Barbara County. In addition, a 50 percent reduction in seepage from the La Goleta seep would remove about 25 barrels of oil per day from the sea surface, which in turn would result in a 15 percent reduction in the amount of tar found on Santa Barbara beaches."
They conclude by saying that the rate of increase of global methane atmospheric concentrations has been declining for the past 20 years, and that a "worldwide decrease in natural hydrocarbon seepage related to onshore and offshore oil production may be causing a global reduction in natural methane emission rates."
Readers of FR have a pretty good handle on the general amount of oil available to the US. Those that rely on other outlets that rely on an appealing person with a smooth voice to read the news of course will not have had the opportunity to obtain this information.
We can quibble on the differing amounts provided by numerous studies, but the fact is, the availability of oil ain't a problem for us. It is the management of oil that is the problem.
bflr
I am an all of the above person, but gambling on better technology to get and refine shale oil is going to be just as costly and risky as moving towards alternative energy. The only problem is that if we only concentrated on local oil to ween off of foreign influence, we would be in the same problem in 15 years when the most readily available resources are out of our technologies reach. There will always be lots of oil in the ground, the problem is that the easiest oil to get to and refine is running low.
Yes, we have 2 trillion barrels of shale oil, but ask any geologist why we shouldn’t be too excited about that number. Most of this isn’t even as close to be as accessible and as good of quality as in the Middle East. All of this while our demand for oil grows exponentially.
We need to have an all of the above approach, but oil at home isn’t the solution and if government grants and resources are going to contribute to the future of energy that needs to be realized.
I think as far as alternative energy goes, the country can take the same incentive based approach as Texas in order to have a relatively Free Market approach to growing the tech sector.
Texas hasn’t become the Wind King by subsidizing wind farms, the government gives entrepreneurs incentives and tax breaks to do business in Texas.
Does anyone have links to articles re these threads and posts?
No links to mine,
I grabbed it from a screen shot many years ago and repost rarely.
It was an actual article.
“Texas hasn’t become the Wind King by subsidizing wind farms, the government gives entrepreneurs incentives and tax breaks to do business in Texas.”
That’s subsidy by another name... Check this out.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
#3 son just left the Slope after five years up there, to go to work in the Bakken field. He will be in Minot, ND. They say, “Rockin’ the Bakken!” and have bumper stickers and teeshirts for it. :o)
It is true, we have a lot of oil, but a lot is hard to reach, low quality high sulfur, or in small pockets. A few years ago I was in southern Illinois, and saw many working “grasshopper” rigs. I made inquiries and found that a lot of farmers were running one or two rigs, and getting from 1 to 12 barrels a day at 4 to 5,000 feet. Hardly a huge production.
The post doesn’t make clear whether these new finds are shale, or oil that can be recovered by more traditional pumping methods. Any breakdown of the 503 billion and the 2 trillion between shale and oil that can be pumped?
I THINK DRILLING FOR THESE BIG OIL FINDS WOULD CREATE MASSIVE JOBS IN OUR ENERGY SECTOR-(DEEP WATER GULF DRILLING ALSO), AND AT THE SAME TIME BECOMING ENERGY INDEPENDANT.IT WOULD ALSO BOOM THE STEEL INDUSTRY-PIPELINES,SPAR-PLATFORMS,ECT.- IT WOULD RESTORE OUR CAR INDUSTRY-(LOW STEEL COST, FUEL,JOBS ECT.)-IT WOULD PAY OFF OUR DEPT- ALL THIS WOULD BE CREATING JOBS AT THE SAME TIME- IT COULD PAY FOR HEALTH COVERAGE FOR LOW INCOME WORKERS- ALL THESE PROPERTIES COVERED IN OIL NEEDS TO BE TAPPED FOR LOTS OF REASONS..—
Bakken oil production zones tend to be tight, meaning that they have to be fracked to produce, and many run out of oil in a short period of time.
The oil *is* there, but the cost to recover that oil is high.
There are other production zones.
Barnett Shale in Texas is more economical, especially for natural gas (notice natural gas prices coming down due to Arkansas, Louisianna, and Texas production recently).
When I was a kid and went to the beach in the 40s you couldn’t go to any beach from Santa Barbara to the mexican border without getting covered with tar.
About twice a month I used to have lunch with the VPs of Union Oil at Little Joes in Los Angeles and in the 70s they told me that they had 400 years supply for the US in their reserves in California.
The entire L.A and Orange County basin is nothing but a giant pool of oil.
Oil still boils up on the Horseshoe Kelp 7 miles off L.A.
the referenced link:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
says only 3 to 4.3 billion barrels, which is only a small fraction of 2 trillion.
This is why DC must be cleaned out...and regular thinking Americans replace all of them....
thats north dakota and montana- look at link of the map above ND and Montana
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