Posted on 05/03/2010 6:25:47 PM PDT by fso301
A report by the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources indicates there may be nearly as much recoverable oil from the Three Forks formation as in the Bakken shale.
While there is more total oil available in the Bakken, a greater percentage can be recovered from the Three Forks formation, which is now considered a separate formation from the Bakken.
"It's hard to argue that you can improve on a 99 percent success rate, but in fact we can improve on that because we now have two layers," said Lynn Helms, the department's director.
Of the estimated 20 billion barrels of oil in the Three Forks formation, about 2 billion barrels, is recoverable. Although the Bakken formation contains about 169 billion barrels, only 2 billion barrels likely will be produced.
That leaves about 4 billion of barrels of oil beneath North Dakota's surface, Helms said, that should make for about 30 to 40 years of production and if technology improves, possibly more.
"We're not trying to promote this as a gold rush," Helms said. "We want sustainable growth and sustainable production."
North Dakota produces about 95 million barrels of oil per year, but that number could jump to 110 million barrels. The U.S. uses about 7.5 billion barrels of oil a year.
But one problem standing in the way of production is that as much one third of the land lies under federal grasslands currently protected from drilling.
Gov. John Hoeven said he will discuss this issue in a meeting today with leaders from the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., has drafted a letter to the head of the Bureau of Land Management, part of the federal Department of the Interior that oversees federal lands, urging they stop delaying the sale of the leases.
"That's going to be an ongoing endeavor," Hoeven said of trying to expedite permitting to they area.
If the drilling meets expectation, the oil profits will bring $165 million to oil-producing counties
After reading just the headline I was going to remark that the environmentalists would find some endangered lizard or something. Now I see that EPA/MMS already have their stop work orders ready.
doesn’t matter Obummer and the rats will not allow domestic drilling. They want 10.00 gas.
Look for a highly suspicious catastrophe. The Obamunist assault is not going to end.
Not world changing, but a good living for a lot of people.
Bingo...
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