[Bigun]

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 .

[Recon Dad]

I looked at the Bakken as huge until this came through...

Early last month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated in its report, Review of Emerging Resources: U.S. Shale Gas and Shale Oil Plays, that the Monterey/Santos play in southern California holds 15.4 billion barrels of shale resources; the Bakken and Eagle Ford are the next largest shale oil plays at approximately 3.6 billion barrels and 3.4 billion barrels of oil respectively. The Monterey shale is the primary source rock for the conventional oil reservoirs found in the Santa Maria and San Joaquin basins in southern California.

[thackney]

Those numbers do not represent the crude oil we have, but the hydrocarbons we have trapped in shale. It cannot be produced by drilling like the oil that is coming out of the Bakken currently.

The hydrocarbon trapped in the shale for the 6~8 time SA numbers are kerogen that can only be released by retorting the shale. Typically, this requires heating up the shale and until the kerogen is released. Then the kerogen can be processed into a synthetic crude that can be refined. But those process are expensive and take significant energy input.

[SUSSA]

Good post!

One point that needs to be mentioned; these figures are before the latest increases in the recoverable oil. Also, it should be noted that the government estimates are historically much lower than the actual oil recovered once drilling starts.

[Sherman Logan]

I suspect your figures on amount of recoverable oil in other countries is based on “old” technology. It is likely other areas of the world will find additional oil reserves, using the new technology, similar to those in the USA. There is nothing particularly notable about North American geology relative to other parts of the world.

What this means, of course, is that the world probably has a significant multiple of the recoverable oil that we thought we did a few years ago. Which blows a pretty big hole in the “peak oil” hypothesis.

[al baby]

One would think if we would open up those areas for drilling and build new refiners it would help the economy