NEW OIL?

Can this be right? Predictions like this, common throughout oil history, rarely are. But if this is true, it will change the face of contemporary energy. Reserves twice as big as Saudi Arabia's?

Billions of barrels in Bakken recovery seen
Alan Petzet, November 17, 2006 (Oil and Gas Journal)
- The Bakken formation play in the Williston basin is writing a new chapter in the oil reserves history of the US onshore Lower 48…
- The play is spearheading production and reserves increases in Montana and North Dakota and prompting reevaluation of earlier resource assessments…
- A 2006 estimate by the US Geological Survey put the technically recoverable resource for the entire Bakken formation at 271-503 billion bbl in place, with a mean of 413 billion bbl…
- [T]he most recent estimate of the technically recoverable crude oil resource of the entire US is 174.67 billion bbl, excluding the Bakken. US proved reserves at Dec. 31, 2005, were 21.757 billion bbl…
- Elm Coulee field, in Richland County, Montana, is at 529 sq miles the largest discovered field in the Middle Bakken formation…[with] estimated oil in place at 5 million bbl/sq mile…

- The continuous nature of the Bakken formation means its hydrocarbons, deposited during the Upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian periods, have not accumulated into discreet reservoirs of limited areal extent, but the Bakken remains to be penetrated across a considerable portion of the basin…
- The Bakken play started after operators analyzed geologic data on a decades-old producing area, identified an untapped resource, and applied horizontal drilling and fracturing technology to exploit it…Elm Coulee field, discovered in 2000, produced 15 million bbl of oil (41,000 b/d) in 2005 and is yielding nearly 50,000 b/d…
- Current drilling is focused on the middle member of the Bakken, which is more porous and permeable than the overlying and underlying Bakken shales. The Bakken is at 11,000 ft in the basin depocenter in southwestern North Dakota and 3,100 ft in Manitoba and Saskatchewan…massive low-permeability carbonates above and below the Bakken acted as seals. The increased temperatures and pressures that accompanied subsidence thermally converted the kerogen content of the shales into oil…
- Proved reserves at the end of 2005 were 427 million bbl in Montana…Proved reserves at the end of 2005 were 418 million bbl in North Dakota…
- Frac pumps need to overcome overburden stress and bottomhole reservoir fluid pressure, and fracture closing stresses can be greater than 8,000 psi, enough to crush normal sand proppant. Stronger proppants are more expensive.

- Steps are being taken to alleviate transportation bottlenecks created by burgeoning Bakken production and reserves…
- The Williston basin's existing pipeline system also transports Canadian tar sands oil and is full, and some operators have shut in wells and postponed drilling…

Territory ripe for a boom. Watch it.