USGS finds 3 billion barrels of oil in United States
Actually, the report – dated last spring – states there is between 3 billion and 4.3 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana. The U.S. Geological Survey assessment states the oil is technically recoverable, with current technology.
Hat tip to reader Fred.
We’re not running out of oil. The oil “found” in the Bakken Formation is probably not easy to get at and will cost more to get out of the ground. With oil prices low, it probably does not make much sense for oil companies to request drilling rights since there would not be enough profit available at current market prices.
The real question is if oil prices go up, will the environmental wackos allow companies to drill responsibly to get at the oil when we need it? I don’t have much hope for that.
From the USGS Newsroom…
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.
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And what a crying shame that Obama will slap "closed for business" signs on this and all of the offshore oil around Cali and Florida, preferring to chase green energy windmills and fill the gap with oil from terrorist sponsoring or sympathetic countries. And he was just in Canada trying to convince the Canadians to stop processing the vast oil shale/sand resources in their country.
"No blood for oil?" Heck, this adminstration won't bother to drill for oil, much less fight for it.
I wish he was half as smart as they keep telling us he is.
Very interesting. There are also large reserves in western Colorado, which have recently been placed off limits for exploration and production.
A pattern I've seen in the last twenty years is that when oil prices rise to the point that domestic oil companies make plans to develop and produce that crude oil, the world prices suddenly plummet, making such investments no longer economically viable.
Well at least one of the above has observed that the only oil that has a chance of coming out of the ground in the US, is when it is economically viable. So if you really want drilling here, Dimsdale, you should be cheering for higher and higher oil prices. And you'll stop complaining of high oil prices? And now tell me how the prices will come down when the oil supply increases, when it cannot increase if increasing the supply is not economically viable.
And, Dimsdale, what is this phrase "No blood for oil" mean? And fight for oil? You referring to Iraq? Vicevich assured his audience for years that the Iraq War was not about oil. If so, where did you get the notion of fighting for oil? In the past, the future, right now?