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The Bakken/Three Forks reserves are huge. The USGS has been careful to not overstate the oil present there, and in so doing has consistently understated the reserves present. The Bakken and Three Forks are related, but only two of many different strata which produce oil here, so when the development drilling is done in them, there will be even more to look at.

I have been working wells as a geologist in the Bakken and Three Forks since 2000, and there are plenty more left to drill--about 1800 wells a year are being drilled and completed now, and there are a few more years of development left yet.

Despite growing pains and the much publicized naysayers (mostly from other parts of the state or elsewhere), it is a tremendous blessing to live in one of the bright shining economic beacons in a landscape fraught with desolation. I have seen license plates from every state (people who came to this corner of the world looking for--and finding--work). What a blessing that so many bent on working and feeding their families or saving what they have worked for elsewhere in some cases, have come here and found it.

There are many fields in the Rockies, different areas where the geology is separated into distinct basins by mountain ranges and faults. The Williston Basin is the one with the Bakken, but there are the Cedar Creek Anticline (a large upfold, and not a basin), the Powder River Basin, Big Horn Basin, Wind River Basin, the Green River Basin, the Pinedale Anticline, DJ Basin, just to name a few of those distinct geological areas.

All have formations (rock layers) which have oil and/or gas, and most of those areas have considerable Federally controlled portions which have been slowed in development and exploration by this administration.

We could be more energy self-sufficient, and even export LNG, but policy stands in the way.

We have been blessed with tremendous resources, if we have the will to use what God has given us.