Bakken news from around the internet on the eve of the USGS report

My guess at what the USGS will report as the recoverable oil in the Bakken formation tomorrow.

Well my guess was far to optimistic. The USGS 2008 figure was 3.65 billion barrels of oil for the US part of the Bakken formation.

Stackfrac horizontal drilling that is available today could recover up to 15% of the oil in parts of the formation. 75% of the formation is in the USA. 25% is in Canada. Not all parts of the formation would have 15% recovery, some might have 0-10%. Even though future technology could improve this number, that is not what will be projected. The high price of oil means that quick wells that produce for as little as 6-12 months could be profitably drilled.

I will say for the US portion 380 billion barrels of oil in place and 42 billion barrels of recoverable oil with todays technology. My guess is whole formation has 510 billion barrels of oil in place. 15 Billion barrels of recoverable oil in Canada.

Business Week reports on the Bakken and the imminent USGS report

Salon has brief coverage.

Bakken shale blog is of course solely focused on the Bakken

The Cost of Energy summarizes some of the data and reports and agrees there is a lot of oil in place but wants the USGS and other sources to pin down whether recoverable oil is 3% or 50% and then will not say how fast it will be developed

Classical values feels that the Bakken shows that capitalism beats fear mongers again

Resource Investor has a news roundup on Bakken

North Dakota Press release from 2006

FURTHER READING
USGS 1995 study and current decline rates

Estimates of bakken oil size and timing

Multistage fracturing horizontal drilling technique

Bakken oil not fully valued

Bakken oil is highly profitable

A Saudi Arabia of oil in Bakken and Toquay formations in the USA and Canada

More bakken news from Google news

Comments are closed.