Interesting......
Apr. 11th, 2008 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgundBakken Shale in US may hold 3.7 bln bbl oil - USGS
"A shale rock formation that stretches across Montana and North Dakota could hold about 3.7 billion barrels of oil, the biggest single deposit in the United States except for Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey said this week.
The new USGS study shows the biggest contiguous oil deposit in the Bakken Shale formation, located in the Williston Basin, which extends from the U.S.-Canada border down into Montana and the Dakotas.
The last time the USGS assessed the area in 1995, it found 151 million barrels of technically recoverable oil, but drilling technology advances allowed the 25-fold increase in its potential, said U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who requested the study."
(also 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— (USGS.gov) )
Couple things I noticed while listening to this story on the radio. North Dakota is already gearing up to handle an influx of workers. And that the state (which is the only state to have a state-run bank, as well as grain mills and elevators), is thinking about creation of a state-run oil refinery.
USGS didn't run the surveys in the areas of the shale under Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but the theory is that those areas may also be as rich.
"A shale rock formation that stretches across Montana and North Dakota could hold about 3.7 billion barrels of oil, the biggest single deposit in the United States except for Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey said this week.
The new USGS study shows the biggest contiguous oil deposit in the Bakken Shale formation, located in the Williston Basin, which extends from the U.S.-Canada border down into Montana and the Dakotas.
The last time the USGS assessed the area in 1995, it found 151 million barrels of technically recoverable oil, but drilling technology advances allowed the 25-fold increase in its potential, said U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who requested the study."
(also 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— (USGS.gov) )
Couple things I noticed while listening to this story on the radio. North Dakota is already gearing up to handle an influx of workers. And that the state (which is the only state to have a state-run bank, as well as grain mills and elevators), is thinking about creation of a state-run oil refinery.
USGS didn't run the surveys in the areas of the shale under Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but the theory is that those areas may also be as rich.
