How Much Oil in the Bakken Formation?

I am no geologist, but in the case of energy and oil reserves, there is a economic / political agenda to overcome to get the the 'truth'.

If there were credible statements saying "more than Saudi Arabia" or to the contrary, one has to consider what would be the economic / political impact to the US, and what is the impact on the world energy situation when currently the middle-east holds all the 'cards'.

Is it only 'smoke and mirrors' like the 'shale oil' stories? Is there really more oil than we would need in 'decades', all belonging to the USA? Are there any oil reserves at all? Watch for the developing stories, not just scientifically, but politically, as more is disclosed.

Only my humble opinion ... thanks for the post

Who really knows?but theres capped wells in many states.and off the southern coast.many well comment about the need for refinerys,its much easier to just expand current refinerys.i guess the permits part of the equation is killing us.a friend worked in the long beach harbor and an engineer there told him theres enough oil in the harbor to supply the usa for years if we could only get permission to pump it.John McCain has actually sounded preety good lately about his energy ideas,oboma dosent seem to have a clue,he keeps talking about future technology?i think were swimming in oil,north slope of alaska,anwar.just think of the savings if people who actually didnt need a pickup truck traded them in for a small car.nobody seems to want to talk about this easy way to lessen our demand for oil.im a trucker and its starting to put people out of buisness.

The amount of oil and/or gas that has been generated in the Bakken Formation is dependent, in part, by the type of organic matter that is within the sediment, the level or degree of thermal maturity (heating) and the stratigraphic thickness of the formation. The amount of oil and/or gas that can be produced and/or recovered, is another matter.

Dr. Geoffery Bayliss, a world famous geochemist and owner of Geochem Laboratories, Inc. in Houston, Texas, can probably answer your question.

Well they could use the same technolgy they used last time pump down liquid nitrogen

every thing freezes an breaks an you pump this up an separate the solids from the liquids an reuse the liq nitrogen for fertilizer or refine an reuse

I am working in the Middle East. I can assure that the high oil prices are not a function of too little raw crude oil. The problem with high prices for refined product is a lack of refinery capacity. It is true that the increasing economic growth in China and India has added demand for refined products and when you couple that increased demand with the almost total absence of construction of refineries you get high fuel prices. It is unrealistic to expect the United States, the worlds largest comsumer, to reduce oil comsumption in a short period of time. The entire economy and life style of the US,read infrastructure, is built on the assumption of a never ending supply of cheap gasoline. In the Middle East and the developing world the population densities are much higher than in the US. This is not going to change anytime soon.

I too have worked in the Middle East. More than just somewhere in Iraq, I covered the whole country. I was a Blackhawk pilot. I went on long flights that allowed me to have hour long conversations with people I couldn't get close to stateside. Crude oil is available true, and refining capacity is below product demand in the United States. This makes it look like a supply and demand issue that raises pump prices. After leaving the Army, I now have my chemical engineering degree and I am employed at a west coast refinery. I can tell you that "Big Oil" is making a killing right now. I can also tell you that it is not coming from refining. Profit margins are currently below average. There are refining companies that are losing money currently because they are not big enough to be diversified like the "Big Oil" companies. Crude comes out of the ground and gets sold for $120 per barrel. My refinery turns that into finished product and makes about $3 per barrel in profit. Upstream is a commodities market that obeys supply and demand, while refining tends to be more susceptable to contracts. For those companies that don't have upstream helping them out financially (Valero, Tesoro, etc.), they are getting charged insane dollars for their feed stock. My company has vast upstream assets, but we get no preferrence on pricing even on our own oil. If the company can make more by selling it to Cheveron, they will do that in a heart beat. So yes, we are short in refining capacity, but no it has very little to do with the pump price everyone is experiencing.

As for the Bakken Formation, I am in no position to comment on how much is really there, but I can tell you that at the current price, we are developing new recovery technologies all the time and if it is there, it is recoverable at the current price.

People always talk about peak oil, but the truth is there is plenty of oil for hundreds of years, it is just not as easy to get to as the oil that has been previously pumped. Because engineers are ingenious: as long as there is demand for oil, we will find technologies and places to get it. The current oil price in my opinon is a function of several bad decisions and bad monetary policy...

1) Diesel is damned expensive because we mandated ULSD without making sure there was sufficient supply of ULSD to meet demand. There isn't. US refineries did the ULSD upgrades, but our foriegn importers did not. US refiners are making every drop of diesel they can. Mexico is now in a mad dash to do ULSD modifications at their refineries to help meet US demand. Diesel price would drop instantly if the ULSD requirment was put on holiday.

2) A few years ago congress outlawed MTBE instead of insisting that the stations with leaky fuel tanks fix their problem. As a result the fuel stock was instantly reduced, and corn ethanol has not kept up with the need. What does reducing supply do in the face of rising demand?

3) The real estate crash brought down the stock market, and without real estate or stocks to make a profit in, pension funds and other mutual funds moved into oil. As a result the price escalated.

4) The US dollar devaluation has contributed as well. It won't be long before oil is traded in Euros instead of dollars.

5) Not to mention a surge in world demand...

We saw similar market problems in the 70's. The price escalated, and supplies shrank. A few years later price crashed and oil was $10 a barrel. All the oil shale and coal gasification projects in the mountain states that were going great guns suddenly were closed. History has a way of repeating itself, and large tar sands and oil shale formations like Bakken may well be forgotten again.....

The reason MTBE was outlawed was because the stuff is so toxic that a pint of gasoline/mtbe spilled onto one's lawn would contaminate the groundwater/aquifer reservoirs below. It penetrates through all rock substrates until it meets water.

It has contaminated most groundwater reservoirs in the US. Leaking fuel tanks was just one source.....many more were small household spills.

Well I disagree... banning MTBE has had two negative consequences, more air pollution, and higher gas prices.. MTBE is still extensively used in other parts of the world, and if properly handled should not be an issue. It does indeed like water, but you make it sound like spilling a tea cup of gasoline would contaminate all the water in a reservoir, not true.

In addition, all the other nasties in gasoline ought not be put in the ground either. My personal opinion is that banning MTBE was very bad politics...

http://www.epa.gov/mtbe/faq.htm

In a perfect world household spills and others would never have occured....quotes the EPA below....

"Contamination of drinking water sources can occur from leaking underground and above ground fuel storage tanks, pipelines, refueling spills, automobile accidents damaging the fuel tank, consumer disposal of "old" gasoline", emissions from older marine engines, and to a lesser degree, storm water runoff, and precipitation mixed with MTBE in the air"

My personal opinion is that allowing MTBE use was bad politics given the professional lobby was against it.

As I recall it was in an Escort body in the Ford literature. They were doing some off-road racing with it - or maybe just an off-road test track.

I think the US is just keeping its oil reserves underground until they run out everywhere else.

Then we'll be the oil controlling/producing nation and be able to take over the world.

Bloody optimist! Trouble with that idea is, we'll run out of money before "they" run out of oil...

I don't know if you are to far off the mark.

The ultra rich don't care if we are broke and if you don't have tens of millions, to play with, you are not invited to get into the oil speculation game.

If they can use up everyone else's oil then it is not a monopoly, or is it?

If that is not the plan then it sure seems to appear that way

Brad

Recall reading in Scientific American some many years back that atomic device was detonated to break through the dolomite layer in the Bakken formation. No further detonations were conducted ostensibly due to the resultant contamination.

Has anybody else heard of this?

I remember they found MTBE in streams and fish,the ethanol idea,bad idea, great if your a corn grower.The man caused global warming scam well only ad gas to the fire.global warming is code for-the new tax.

I was talking to a geologist the other day and he said the amount of any resources are exactly the same as the people who are providing the research money say they are. Now you also know the formular for successfully getting research grants as well.

There are some good video's here worth watching one is kinda long.

http://mysticalnights.net/viewforum.php?f=5

Hi Allen048, which video is it that pertians to the amount of oil and/or gas contained within the Bakken Formation?

Thanks,

Karl W. Schwab