This is extremely interesting news

Jstas

On Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey is going to release a document on the study of what is know as the Bakken formation.

http://www.kxmc.com/News/226287.asp

This formation is an oil shale deposit that covers roughly 200,000 square miles. Basically, most of North and South Dakota, a good chunk of Montana and Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

Here is some research on the Bakken formation.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1318522/research_on_bakken_formations_oil_reserves_nearly_completed/

Estimates have varied widely but what the big deal here is that in the last 10 years since the last time this formation was looked at, estimates have risen drastically. The geologist that first found it and started studying it estimated potential production to be close to 1 billion barrels. But given new technology, studies by a Leigh Price have shown that there is a potential of 900 billion barrels.

If that is true, the boon to the economy and resulting plummeting of fuel prices would bring this housing market fueled recession to a screeching halt and start running full speed the other way.

It won't fix the housing market but it will likely drop fuel prices and mean more money back in your pocket instead of your gas tank. This is kind of a big deal and it'll be interesting to see what the USGS has to say on Thursday.

millerman 3732

Lets hope.

bobman1235

Well the question would be what is the time frame for all that?

If they can't start producing anything from it for another decade I don't think it's going to help the recession all that much.

Ricardo

Wow; can you imagine all the benefits that reduced oil imports would bring? This could be huge.

treitz3

I welcome great news like this, but don't we have the same thing in Alaska?

Strong Bad

Wanna talk about one of the greatest threats to our national security....the dependance on foreign oil.

We get this place going at full capacity at an estimated $20-$40 per barrel, we can tell alot of the Arab countries to go eff themselves! Think how our economy will boom.

Thanks for posting!

AsSiMiLaTeD

Supposedly this is more, though the wiki links says something about us being able to use a higher percentage of the oil in Alaska...

I get why we would want to hang on to our own oil and use the oil from elsewhere, but I think we're going to end up holding on to it for too long. Newer energy technologies are going to emerge, and we're still gonna have this big put of oil in Alaska and not have any use for it....

treitz3

treitz3 wrote: »

I welcome great news like this, but don't we have the same thing in Alaska?

Oh, well after reading the links it appears this is potentially awesome news. As quoted in the links..."Estimates for ultimate oil contained in the entire Bakken play range from 271 billion to 503 billion barrels, with a mean of 413 billion barrels of technically recoverable and irrecoverable oil. This massive estimate appears to dwarf the estimated 50–70 billion barrels of technically recoverable and irrecoverable oil in Alaska's North Slope."

mhardy6647

Charles Osgood said today on The Osgood File that gas prices are high right now predominantly because demand is down (i.e., I wouldn't hold your breath for any decrease in price to be associated with this).

http://www.westwoodone.com/osgood

exalted512

So whos going to be doing the drilling so I can buy some of their stocks?...lol
-Cody

zingo

It's all a great idea except leftist eco-freaks would rather our ecomony fail and country crumble then drill that expanse. We all know how drilling Alaska is going, and that could have a similar effect.

treitz3

zingo wrote: »

It's all a great idea except leftist eco-freaks would rather our ecomony fail and country crumble then drill that expanse. We all know how drilling Alaska is going, and that could have a similar effect.

Yeah, but when gas hits $6.00 a gallon avg., they may shut up.

jwhitakr

Very cool news, thanks for posting Jstas. I would love to see the amount of recoverable oil available in the US get such a huge expansion. I don't think it would allow us to cut our ties to foreign oil, and I definitely don't think it will just sit there and not be used for drilling (they are already drilling and getting oil in Montana).

But it might allow us to greatly reduce our dependency to foreign oil, which has been a goal of just about every govt. administration for the past 100 years.

AsSiMiLaTeD

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Charles Osgood said today on The Osgood File that gas prices are high right now predominantly because demand is down (i.e., I wouldn't hold your breath for any decrease in price to be associated with this).

http://www.westwoodone.com/osgood

Uh, isn't that like the opposite of what's supposed to happen?

treitz3

Polkmaniac wrote: »

Uh, isn't that like the opposite of what's supposed to happen?

Well, apparently he didn't have his morning coffee.

Here's another link for those who are interested....
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html

cfrizz

LOL! You all are dreaming! Do you really think the oil companies would ever give up their enormous profits that they have grown used to? What makes you think they will keep all that oil in house?

They couldn't care less about our economy. They would probably hire foriegners to pump it out & then sell it overseas, all the while continuing to raise prices here.

jdwmap

When demand goes down, price goes down

When supply goes up, price goes down

Unfortunately right now supply just took a huge hit, it is doubtful that you will see a decrease regardless of demand right now.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/crude-rallies-us-inventories-data/story.aspx?guid=%7B6A34176B-7708-43A1-9A6E-BB6890A78329%7D&dist=msr_7

AsSiMiLaTeD

I couldn't disagree with that more, what happens in our economy directly impacts the bottom line for domestic oil companies. I think they have more stake in our economy than most...

mantis

I just want to shoot myself everytime I get gas. 45 to 60 bucks a tank. It lasts like a week and a half.

I drive a 2005 Pathfinder and it gets like 21 on the highway and 15 to 17 around town. So I'm hating on it. I want to get a hybrid or a alt something fuel thing. I hate the gas prices. I hope this supply helps.

zingo

treitz3 wrote: »

Yeah, but when gas hits $6.00 a gallon avg., they may shut up.

I feel when that happens, they'll say "See I told you so, that's how much it cost you to murder mother earth." They already have carbon off-sets, and carbon taxes and credits that makes people and businesses pay money for nothing. The wonderful WA state was considering a MPG tax a while back on top of the gasguzzler tax. In my book, the oil companies are no saints either. You can Terra Pass my...

I just sold my beloved diesel Super Duty for a 2008 Focus. With $4.15 a gallon and $100 fill ups for a little under two weeks worth of driving, I couldn't take it anymore. It now costs me $35 worth of gas for the same amount of driving. Granted, this is no fix and only a band-aid, but cutting fuel costs by 1/3 saves by monthly budget. (I'm still holding out for the mass electric car. Maybe a Chevy Volt?) Selling my truck still makes me sick.

exalted512

Good thing I bought a motorcycle. 50mpg helps a lot when driving 450 miles a week.
-Cody

treitz3

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/bakken-oil-production/613

EDIT: And a word from the Department of Energy, 2006..

"As explained in Technology-Based Oil and Natural Gas Plays: Shale Shock! Could There Be Billions in the Bakken? (9 page, 358KB PDF), written by the US Dept. of Energy in November 2006 ...

So, where does all this leave us?

* Bakken seems to have an undeniably large amount of oil in place, approximately 400 billion barrels.

* The amount of that oil that's technically recoverable is open to wildly varying estimates, from 3% to 50%, or 12 to 200 billion barrels.

* How quickly can the oil be produced? Even assuming that the transportation issue is solved, which it surely would be with billions of barrels of oil hanging in the balance, it's not at all clear in anything I could find what kind of technical hurdles would have to be overcome to move from exploratory wells to, say, a couple of million
barrels/day.

* Similarly, it's anyone's guess how quickly that production could ramp up to whatever level is feasible.

* Bakken seems to be a near perfect example of the dual effects of rising market prices and advancing technology making a previously known (discovered in 1953, remember), but only marginally developed, oil and natural gas reserve suddenly far more attractive.

* As for what Bakken means in the context of the peak oil discussion, it is what it is, as they say on at least one reality TV show. If in the coming years it turns out not to produce much oil per day, then it will have no discernible effect on projections of when the peak arrives or how tightly the oil crunch will squeeze us. If we are indeed on path for a 2011/2012 peak, then it's very hard to imagine how Bakken could come into play in a significant way before then. A moderate amount of oil/day from Bakken will likely contribute to maintaining a production plateau for years, which is my long standing prediction of where we're headed, for exactly the economic and technical reasons mentioned above. A high level of daily production from Bakken would trigger some interesting (to put it mildly) market dynamics. We would possibly see OPEC trim their output to support a market price they like, even as Bakken ramps up and other non-OPEC producers continue to experience production declines.

* Bakken will likely become the object of seemingly infinite discussion in the coming years as cornucopians try to claim it's "proof peak oil was wrong" (and I'm curious why we haven't seen them doing this already, frankly), and the Apocalypticons dismissing it entirely (ditto).

* My recommendation for the short run: Chill out. Wait for the truth to unfold. Don't jump to conclusions. Eat your veggies, exercise, and floss your teeth."

Here's another informative link with a plether of information.... http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/bakken-and-torquay-formations-saudi.html

candyliquor35m

This is something similar in CO:

http://www.stansberryonline.com/PRO/0704OILCOL49/WOILH712/200704OIL-COL-49.html

tonyb

Great news,but I am afraid that is all it will be.The wacko environment people will never let drilling happen.

treitz3

Well, drilling has already started. The amount of pumping stations is expected to double this year, so I guess they don't care about this area as much as Alaska. I'm sure a lot will be riding on this report coming [expected to come] out on Thursday.

The more I read up on this, America has been planning on this day since 1930+- and I don't foresee any group stopping what I think is inevitable. I could be wrong, but I hope not.

tonyb

The question is,if they can drill it,will it be put on the open market? If so,then we will pay the going rate,100 bucks a barrel.So where is the savings? Whats the incentive for xyz oil company to sell to us for 50 a barrel,when they can double it on the open market?

jdhdiggs

cfrizz wrote: »

LOL! You all are dreaming! Do you really think the oil companies would ever give up their enormous profits that they have grown used to? What makes you think they will keep all that oil in house?

They couldn't care less about our economy. They would probably hire foriegners to pump it out & then sell it overseas, all the while continuing to raise prices here.

Tony and Cathy:

You do understand that if big oil doesn't move on it, then small oil will and small oil will become big oil right? If small oil can move in and sell at $60, they'll do it. They won't be able to sell at $100 because they just increased supply.

Back in reality, this is great news for us: My wife and I have a lot of mineral rights through those areas (Gotta love forward looking geophysicists in the family!) In fact, we should start getting royalties from some production in SD in the next 6 months. This is already happening. There's also a lot of oil plays in "discovering" oil in pumped dried wells from the 50's and 60's. All of it is pretty cool

treitz3

tonyb wrote: »

The question is,if they can drill it,will it be put on the open market? If so,then we will pay the going rate,100 bucks a barrel.So where is the savings? Whats the incentive for xyz oil company to sell to us for 50 a barrel,when they can double it on the open market?

I was wondering about that myself, but as I was reading the reports almost everything I read said that the oil will sell for $40-50/barrel forcing OPEC to lower their rates. I wish I knew more about the oil industry to answer your question [which was a good one, BTW], but just based upon what I read, it seems that there is "something" holding back the three companies from selling at current prices.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

cfrizz

I hope you're right James. In the meantime, I'm glad I don't have a car!

Early B.

cfrizz wrote: »

LOL! You all are dreaming! Do you really think the oil companies would ever give up their enormous profits that they have grown used to? What makes you think they will keep all that oil in house?

They couldn't care less about our economy. They would probably hire foriegners to pump it out & then sell it overseas, all the while continuing to raise prices here.

Leave it to cfrizz to be the voice of reason on this topic.

You guys are crazy if you think:

a: the oil actually exists there

b: the oil is gonna be pumped by an American labor force which is at least 10x the cost of labor in most other countries that produce oil

c: that gas prices will eventually decrease as a result of this oil

d: that this apparent oil will save our economy in the short term.

It's a pipe dream, y'all (pun intended).

Strong Bad

I couldn't have gotten rid of my Explorer at a better time. I love my gas sipping Honda Accord!