Huge Oil Reservoir May Lie Under Northern Plains

Huge Oil Reservoir May Lie Under Northern Plains
Thursday , April 10, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349728,00.html

BISMARCK, N.D. — The government estimates up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.
The U.S. Geological Survey calls it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

An assessment by USGS in 1999 found the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge had 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, said Brenda Pierce, a geologist for the agency

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The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface.
Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.

Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey's assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be a little on the high side.
"That's a lot of zeros," Kessel said Thursday.

Kessel said his company was the first to get a producing well in the Bakken in North Dakota three years ago. The company now has about 20 producing wells.

The report released Thursday by USGS was done at the request of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., over the past 18 months.

A study by the USGS in 1995 found 151 million barrels of oil could be recovered from the Bakken using technology at that time.
"This is great news," Dorgan said of the new report. "This is 25 times the amount of the previous assessment."


So now the report is final. So who else will start drilling? Better hope some enviro-wacko doesn't discover some kind of wildlife that "needs protecting" in the Bakken like the Caribou in A.N.W.R

Btw how many Americans have actually been to A.N.W.R or ever plan on going there, say for vacation?

In northeastern Alaska. It consists of 19,049,236 acres. There are presently no roads within or leading into the refuge, though there are settlements there.

Traditionally, Alaskan residents, trade unions, and business interests have supported drilling in the refuge, while environmental groups and many within the Democratic Party have traditionally opposed it. Among native Alaskan tribes, support is mixed.

In the 1990s and 2000s, votes about the status of the refuge occurred repeatedly in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, but as of 2007 efforts to allow drilling have always been ultimately thwarted by filibusters, amendments, or vetoes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy