Earlier this year the United States Geological Survey, a government department, released a report that said the area known as the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana could yield between 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of oil.
That is 25 times more than the USGS had estimated in 1995. In contrast, ANWR is estimated to have a recoverable yield of about 11 billion barrels of oil.
“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,” a USGC news release states.
The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states combined. However, the potential of off-shore drilling — this week approved by Congress in select areas – is not under the purview of the USGS.
Western-Standard Energy Corp. (OTCBB: WSEG) is one company that seems to have got the word early. The independent oil and gas exploration company started its operations focused on the two states. It has carved a niche in two small projects that are expected to yield 28 million barrels of oil (Lodgepole Reef Prospects. North Dakota) and 219 billion cubic feet of natural gas (Starbuck East Prospect, Montana)
The USGS identified and assessed five continuous areas or “assessment units” in the Bakken Formation: 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.
Oil volume is often referred to as “technically recoverable.” That means oil resources which can be produced using “currently available technology and industry practices.” The USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources. The Bakken study was part of a nationwide project to assess domestic petroleum basins as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.
As well as the potential oil reserves, The Bakken Formation also has an estimated 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
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