The Observation Deck

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:26 am**

In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated at $20-$40 a barrel.

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:39 am**

how the oil was originally discovered (clicky)

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:09 pm**

That is admittedly a huge find, but a bit of additional reading shows this article may be overstating the recoverable portion.

This report from the Dept of Energy (PDF link) puts the ENTIRE deposit at between 271 and 503 billion barrels. That's including technically recoverable and non-recoverable oil.

Conservative estimates put recoverable oil at 1-3%, more liberal estimates go up to 50%. Even then, with the advances in drilling, there appear to be substantial challenges to getting it out. I wouldn't count on this deposit filling our 20-billion-barrel-a-day habit anytime really soon, but it's still great news.

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:46 pm**

Don't we only use 20 million a day, not billion? I could be wrong.

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:04 pm**

Ryan Salo wrote:Don't we only use 20 million a day, not billion? I could be wrong.

You are correct!

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:11 pm**

That is admittedly a huge find, but a bit of additional reading shows this article may be overstating the recoverable portion.

Yes, the title of the article uses the word could.

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:30 pm**

Another article (clicky)

[quote]River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all such resources are necessarily recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, Rand derived an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. It is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint of the estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years.â€

Posted: **Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:14 pm**

hopefully we won't burn right through it this time!

The Observation Deck

Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

oil