[Renfield]

Why haven't we heard about his anywhere else?

[SlowBoat407]

And in 31 days the enviro-whackos will find an endangered species living on the very spot where the oil companies want to drill.

[television is just wrong]

because people will become curious as to why we are paying so much for gas.

[Last Dakotan]

Why haven't we heard about his anywhere else?

What happens in North Dakota stays in North Dakota.

[TomGuy]

So are large reserves off the coastlines and in the Gulf. But is does little good (for Americans) as long as Congress refuses to allow drilling.

Thusly, other nations benefit from those off-coast reserves because they get to drill for that oil.

[bmwcyle]

You are late to find this news.

[Vigilanteman]

I grew up in North Dakota. There were always rumors of a massive oil find underneath the relatively small oil fields centered around Tioga, in the northwest part of the state.

We always joked that if such a discovery was ever made, we'd better drill it quietly as an economic boom would throw a monkey-wrench into elitist plans to turn the state into a buffalo preserve.

[Seruzawa]

Big deal. The RAts will never let anyone drill simply because it would be better for the country. Their re-election requires that they screw the country up as much a possible so that they can “save” it.

[VRWCtaz]

I wondered the same thing. I did a Google search on the Bakken Oil Formation and got basically the same info as this article. WOW!

[SomeCallMeTim]

Hallelujah!!

I hope this story is true...

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/02/26/984/booming_oil_patch_lights_up_north_dakota_rangeland/

[GulfBreeze]

North Dakota?!?

No more Coal for Oil!

Or something like that.

[Victor]

"....the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 Trillion Dollars which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run......"

Shoot....what's to discuss? Sounds like a no-brainer.

[DaGman]

If this was that viable an oil field, it would have been drilled for many years ago. Horizontal drilling works in some cases. But there’s lots of reasons why it has been largely abandoned and cost is just one.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Doesn’t Ted Turner own most of North Dakota now?

[onedoug]

We already have enough oil to be independent, but politicians won’t allow it.

[stboz]

My employer has locations in Dickinson, ND and Sidney, MT. We can't hire drivers for our trucks because they're all working in the oil patch.

Drill!!!

[never4get]

It means nothing unless you drill it, refine it and ship it.....

[brownsfan]

The oil companies will claim “instability” of supply, (technically correct), and raise prices.

[HD1200]

It has been reported time & again over the years. The problem was getting it out. NOw they have developed drilling that can drill vertically and then turn 90 degrees and drill through the formation to increase production. Without this technology it was impossible to even think about recovering it.

[RayChuang88]

And this is only the beginning. By adapting the research that a US subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell did by injecting steam and using rock strata heaters to recover oil from shale rock, that 200+ billion barrel reserve could end up being twice to three times that! In fact, there is talk that the Middle Eastern nations want to invest in this new technology because a lot of supposed "tapped out" oilfields in the Persian Gulf could suddenly become productive again.

In short, I'll almost bet within ten years the amount of recoverable oil could be 8-10 times what is known now--and the majority of it won't be in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Once we get stable, democratic governments in Iran and Iraq, modern oil recovery technology could add somewhere in the range of 900 billion barrels of oil to the world just from these two countries. We could be literally swimming in crude oil by 2020.