Domestic Oil

This was just posted a few posts down, but I wanted to highlight it for anyone that wasn't interested in that particular topic.

This is insane! We must, all of us, contact our representatives and tell them to drill here and drill NOW! Or they will not get our votes ever again, no matter how much we may like our own congressmen.

If this oil comes into the market it doesn't matter what commodity traders do, or OPEC, or anyone else. Oil prices plummet. Not to mention the added benefit of not importing Arab oil and Venezuelan gasoline, as we do now. Not many people realize that we buy refined oil in the form of gasoline from Hugo the communist.

Notice the source and go read this for yourself.
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I have a cousin that works in energies on the west coast -- mostly atomic stuff as I understand. He sent me an email that's a little lengthy, but worth reading:

Source:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota &; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana... check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration(EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor... They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

'This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years.' reports, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves..., and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2. And if that didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!

U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains, lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted... With this mother load of oil, why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:

- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States .

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy... WHY?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

I have read of it over the years, it is oil shale. It has been talked about since the 50's. Problem is, it is very expensive to recover - $100+ per barrel. ( over $4 per gallon gas ) It is not enviornmental concerns that have kept it off the market for 50+ years, it is cost. The canucks were going after it in the 70's, early 80's, but the price fell, and the projects were mothballed. In Saudia Arabia, the cost in some fields is as low as $1 per barrell. Long term, the price of oil is gonna go up. Some of the new fields in the Carribean need $100 per to be worthwhile, very deep drilling. There is no new, cheap supply.

This isn't shale, this is light sweet crude. I've read about the shale too, this is different. The shale is further south, in Colorado and around there.

The only reason that drilling on the Bakken formation has come to a standstill is that the price of crude oil has dropped to the point that it isn't profitable to drill for it. The Saudis can produce oil for 50 bucks a barrel and make a profit; we can't.

Or are you saying we should all write our congressmen and tell them oil is too cheap and we want to pay more for it?

Go to Snopes.com, look up the Bakken Formation. The document you posted is on Snopes. It is oil shale. The formation is huge. But the yield is a fraction of what that sales letter states.

The Saudis and the opec guys are saying 75 - 80 $$ oil is where they want to be. It seems oil is gonna be the governor on our economy. Every time we get a little traction, oil will go up. Looks like a long, rough slog, until we can develop something else.

I guess your reading and/or comprehension skills aren't the best. If so, you would've seen that they can bring this oil up for $16 a barrel.

I imagine you have another agaenda and reasons for not wanting domestic, or any, oil brought to market.

Thanks for the insightful and well thought out post though. We all enjoyed your deep thoughts.

Didn't know the United States Geological Survey was into sales. Guess you know something we don't.

If you read the article, and follow the post to the original source you can learn more. It is light sweet crude, better than the oil out of Texas, same as Mideast oil. Easier to refine.

They talk about how it is all in "one basin", not spread over multiple basins in different locales.

Open your mind and read a little.

Here Dippy, I did the research for you. Now if you are just able to read this perhaps you'll have a better understanding.

If you look around google some, you'll find that the Canadians are drilling it now.

And for whoever that was that said this is shale, wrong again. You don't drill for shale, you mine it.
Bakken Oil Field

Red, so if OPEC set the price at $110/barrel and you owned this big reserve, you'd sell it for $30/barrel?

I'm all for using up someone else's oil. Eventually, they'll run out. But we'll still be sitting on iit. Now who's in the driver's seat?

I guess youre one of those that believes snopes isn't legit? Open your mind. If there was that much oil out there, don't you think it would be all over CNN, the old networks, and even Fox? With billions of people on the net everyday, do you think you are gonna see something previously undiscovered? If it is really a secret, how did it get on the net? "Immaculate Posting?"

Why do you think unemployment in North Dakota is under 5%?

There's nothing new about it. They're pumping it now to the tune of 7 million barrels a year. From what I read the USGS study also pegged it at about 2-3 billion barrels of recoverable oil with today's technology. It's sizable but it's not going create any tectonic shift in oil supplies...
50 years ago Alberta started pumping their oil and today they're getting to the latter part of the slide. What's left is largely in the tar sands... and a high recovery cost.
You tired of killing camel jockies?

Rod