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The Bakken Oil Field: Fact or Fiction?


The North American Bakken oil field has received a fair degree of news coverage recently amid claims of up to 500 billion barrels of crude oil under the ground. If this were true this would make it the single largest oil deposit in the world. Where does the Bakken field stand in relation to these claims?



bakken oil discreet The oil field was discovered over 50 years ago and is located across the border of North Dakota and Montana. The area has been extensively studied. The area is rich in oil shale, a rock formation typically associated with oil deposits. The oil in this formation is thinly spread through the rocks, which is called a continuous oil accumulation. This is opposed to discreet oil deposits where the oil is pooled into one area.

bakken oil continuous The spread out nature of the oil in this formation makes recovering it an expensive task. Those areas where there is some pooling of oil have already been drilled and developed and to date 105 million barrels of oil have come from the site. A recent report from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has predicted that a maximum of 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be extracted from the area using conventional technology. Possible technology developments such as horizontal drilling may increase this somewhat. The figure for the amount of recoverable oil in the Bakken formation contrasts sharply with the amount predicted to be present. In 1999 the USGS estimated the total volume of oil in the formation to be in the range of 413 billion barrels.

What then can we make of the claims that this oil field is the solution to America's oil problems, and that development of this field will hail the return of cheap gasoline in the US?

The 4.3 billion barrels of oil available in this area must be seen in context. The United States presently uses somewhere in the vicinity of 7 billion barrels of oil each year, meaning that all the oil readily able to be extracted from this formation would last the US less than eight months. This is in contrast to Saudi oil production which is over 8 billion barrels a year and will continue to be so for some time.

The remainder of the oil in the formation cannot be accessed without great effort and expense. Due to this it is highly unlikely that the field will be developed in a major way until oil prices are so high and demand is so great that there is no alternative.

Clearly the Bakken oil field does not qualify as "the next oil boom". Caution must be exercised when considering investing any money in projects that make improper use of the USGS reports on this formation's oil bearing capacity.

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What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Who funds your Green Planet-Solar-Energy Company?  starstarstarstarstar
Sounds to me that your group has a personal interest in
trying to down play the potential for this areas oil.
Your figures are not credible because of ...

Bakken Oil Numbers Don't Match  starstarstarstarstar
How or where does 4.3 billion barrels come from when 413 billion barrels are whats projected?

Rockin the Bakken!  starstarstarstarstar
I flow test new wells in the Bakken Shale of North Dakota. These wells rock! I've never seen a well puke up 3000 Barrels of oil per day in my life until ...

How long before Bakken Oil will or can be developed in US?  starstarstarstarstar
Why wouldn't drilling for oil be smart for the US?
Why shouldn't people be mad aware of this and fight the environmentalists - LOOK AT THE JOBS THAT WOULD ...

Pretty Lame Explanation for Bakken Oil  starstarstarstarstar
I've been a petroleum geologist for 29 years and the explanation above is the lamest I have seen in a long while. Your figures of "continuous" versus ...

The Question is...What do you Mean by Sustainable?  starstarstarstar
I don't know a thing about the Bakken Oil Field other then what I've read here, but I would tend to trust the men who have worked in the area over the ...

scale of bakken oil  starstarstarstar
Show us what the cost would be to extract the oil, I see no cost analysis and if there is an estimate total volume of 413 billion barrels of oil; how will ...

Just a bunch of Bull  star
Oil was discovered in Montana years ago and these wells were plugged and most were called "tight holes". They were drilled miles from any means of transportation ...

Hicks and Nelder "Profit From The Peak"  Not rated yet
Authors of the above titled book are currently saying that recent confirmations expose very substantial additional resources of oil sands containing high ...

Ridiculous standards  Not rated yet
I love the way the environmentalists puts down each and every potential and actual oil and gas play and reserve development as being immaterial since no ...

Bakken in 10 years  Not rated yet
I'd like to point out that the bakken oil fields will be the next oil boom in the next years...now a barrel costs 80 box, ten years from now the bakken ...

All energy sources are part of the solution  Not rated yet
Why would I even expect an objective, unbiased report from solar energy advocates?? The solution to the nation's energy needs lies in a combination of ...

Bakken oil fields  Not rated yet
Why do some people not want to believe that oil energy is not sustainable or environmentally sound? (Strip mining was once thought a good idea, too.) The ...

Whats expensive?  Not rated yet
It's expensive when you have to pay the Saudis for HEAVY CRUDE it's expensive when you have to transport it to the United States and it's expensive when ...

Great Effort and Expense?  Not rated yet
Why in the world would anyone think that recovering oil is not done without great effort and expense? History has proven that unknown oil sources will ...

How?  Not rated yet
How are we supposed to believe anything when we are told in one report there are trillions of barrels of oil in this fields that will last the U.S.[using ...

Saudi Oil production  Not rated yet
Saudi Arabia doesn't produce 8 billion barrels per year. It is less than half of that. They averaged around 9 million a day for the past few years which ...

There's oil in them there hills  Not rated yet
So we should invest in solar energy? give me a break you losers.. been investing making money you can't even imagine..180% returns.
So go back to saving ...

Horizontal drilling?  Not rated yet
At what stage of development are we at with "Horizontal drilling"? Where can I find pertinent info on horizontal drilling? I'm glad to have found your ...

Good discussion of the issue  Not rated yet
You have provided a clear explanation of the "readily available" oil at this site and the issues and cost for extracting more from the shale. What about ...

Eastern Montana drillling  Not rated yet
I would like to know if Sumatra Montana area is in the Williston Basin? Sumatra is in Rosebud County.

.

Avenging Hawk wants to know  Not rated yet
why is it then that we are paying up the nose for gas if this is true 4.3 billion of domestic oil barrels is better than what we have now so who will benefit ...

How much oil do we use per year?  Not rated yet
Gentlemen:
Please disclose your source(s) for the figure of 7 billion barrels crude usage per year.

Oil Production  Not rated yet
How many gallons of gas is produced from one barrel of oil ?





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