3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation

USGS ^ | April 10, 2008

[billorites]

North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold. The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.

[Lady Jag]

[television is just wrong]

somebody needs to give these greenies a swift kick, or we are all going to be paying 10.00 a gal for gas.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I hope to live long enough to see the wackos who prevent us from recovering oil there, and elsewhere, hanging from lamp posts. Enough of their shenanigans already! Got rope?

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

I'm almost 65 and though I have no plans on leaving all you nice Freepers any time soon, I'm giving 10 - 1 odds that I won't see this reserve (and more than Anwar or deposits off the East Coast)developed to full capacity, in my lifetime.

The green-weenie-Socialist-Enviro-Nuts, who are hell-bent on seeing us revert back to the stone age, will keep this tied up in courts for the next 20 - 30 years.

[richardtavor]

Well, get ready, the Woodford shale is also an oil producer, and it is finally starting to be drilled for....I am about to drill my first horizontal Woodford oil well-but there have been already 7 commercial Woodford Oil wells. The significance is that the Woodford was deposited virtually all over Oklahoma. So, get ready.

[RightWhale]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1573450.stm

Fusion power is “within reach”, according to atomic scientists in the UK.

“I believe that if our experiments are successful, and they are promising, we could be designing the forerunner of the first commercial fusion reactor,” said UKAEA’s Dr Alan Sykes, as he showed BBC News Online around his laboratory at Culham, near Oxford.

Called Mast (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak), the new equipment could be the design breakthrough needed to make fusion power a reality - at long last.

---

This is the way to go.

Or was, Oct 2001, BBC

Haven’t heard much lately

[trumandogz]

As far as I know, there has been no government impediment to drilling in the Bakken like has occurred with ANWR.

BTW-Even if we drill in the Bakken, ANWR and Florida we will still be dependent on foreign oil and we will soon be paying $5.00 a gallon for gas and at some point even $10.00.

[Bommer]

The 500 Billion they are talking about is embedded in the pores of the rock itself. It is recoverable, but the rock has to be super heated to in order get the oil out. Very expensive, but at over $100 a barrel, financially feasible. This area stretches for North Dakota to Saskatchewan and Manitoba BTW and includes the oil sand fields.

[kellynla]

BTTT