hunnychile

Reston, VA -
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.

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3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Oil in North Dakota and Montana
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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 USGS Energy Resources Program, USGS-ERP.
For a podcast interview with scientists about the Bakken Formation, listen to episode 38 of CoreCast at U.S. Geological Survey: USGS CoreCast.

This is reprinted from the Department 0f the Interior and forwared to me from an insider in the Army.

--- So why ARE we, in the USA, buying oil from those mideastern countries that dislike us so much?

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Daniel_

It's cheaper to import than to extract, would be my guess.

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Seaver

A huge section of our Oil is held in a Strategic Reserve. It started during the Cold War when we couldn't guarantee that after our oil was depleted, that we could secure from elsewhere. This continues as our own ability to efficiently extract here disappears as the infrastructure ages, and is expensive to replace.

Long story short, we're enjoying sitting on our pile while we use up our neighbors.

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dippin

One thing that is rarely discussed, but that is important to keep in mind, is that the definition of "recoverable" has changed. Heavy oil that people would pay no mind to before because it would be so expensive to refine are now being considered for exploration and included in the reserves.

That is where the distinction between technically recoverable and economically recoverable comes in. The middle east still sells a lot of oil because not only they have a lot of it, but most of it is very light and cheap to extract.

BadNick

Seaver, The strategic oil reserve holds just barely over 1 month of average U.S. consumption...seems to me that is not very significant in the global picture.

hunnychile,
are you suggesting you would think it would be OK to buy from middle eastern or other sources as long as they are friendly to us?

hunnychile

Yep, other sources for sure - and a controlled amount of our own from within our borders.

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ratbastid

Yeah, that's the one thing that gets ignored in the midst of the Peak Oil discussion. As oil gets more and more scarce, we'll get better and better at wringing the last drops from our poor planet. Every major technological breakthrough in extracting oil will bump the crisis out by maybe a generation or so.

BadNick

I saved this since it made me consider buying BP stocks. It's a few more billion barrels of previously unknown oil, ready to start pumping in a few years...and with the growing expertise for very deep exploration, I think we'll find a lot more.

BP Makes Giant Oil Discovery in Gulf of Mexico (Update4) - Bloomberg.com

dc_dux

The US imports nearly 10 million barrels of oil/day = 3.65 billion barrels/year.

At best, these US fields could replace US oil imports for one year....most likely at a far higher cost than importing
(technically recoverable = expensive, in $$$s and potential environmental degradation.)

By comparison, the Sauid untapped oil fields are estimated to be in the range of 700+ billion barrels.

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ASU2003

How many places did BP have to look before they found that spot? Are there going to be a lot of new places, or was this a small pocket? Will cheap oil from Saudi Arabia make that oil rig too expensive???

I think they also want to get as much oil out of Saudi Arabia as they can. Either prices will go up or it's a protection defense against Iran launching missiles against the Saudi oilfields