Two Hundred Billion Barrels of Oil in North Dakota

This is the Bakken field you are speaking of. This two billion barrels is an estimate on a 1960's partial survey. Sen. Byron Dorgan has gotten the USGS to do a survey. It was just started and will not be done until fall. A majority of the oil would be shale oil. However right now North Dakota is producing more oil than it can ship out or refine. Yet we have the one of the highest gas price in the US. The state is also making plans for a state own refinery. The state also has a State owned bank that subsidises many of the oil operations in the state.


[edit on 21-2-2008 by kingkn8]

reply to post by RedGolem


Why do we need oil?

I'm sorry, but I'm confused.

Technologies exist now on the cheap for everyone to be using clean cheap energy without the environmental cost of destroying the planet.

In case you are uneducated about what I'm talking about, I'd suggest you do your own homework and look up: Solar, wind, geothermal, biodiesel, and other fuel sources.

We do NOT need to keep drilling.

You don't have to be an environmentalists to realize this is a bad idea.

The oil and coal is going to run out sooner rather than later.

Why are we relying on a nonrenewable energy source?

If you really care about reducing/cutting our dependency on foreign oil, invest your time and energy (and money) into renewable resources.

You will do your children and their children and their children a great favor in case we actually need coal, oil, and natural gas for some odd reason.

While I agree we need to completely get off the fossil fuels. There is a major flaw in your statement that....Infastructure. It will take decades if not a century or more to switch. Let alone the facilities to produce the power. People need transportation. How are you suppose to drive, fly, or ride a train. While wind is great it produces little energy right now. Granted it's gotten better as well as solar. As the years go on we will probably get an efficent way to make hydrogen or any other safe fuel. Right now it just is not there. While wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and hydro power are all great the either don't make enough power to power in put. Or they are way to expensive. So to answer your question we need these fuels to get us through the transition.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by kingkn8]

[edit on 21-2-2008 by kingkn8]

Its so nice to see a thread about my state! Like you said, a lot of shale oil and crappy coal. You guys are more then welcome to come drill our land, we love the money

reply to post by kingkn8


Actually we already have an infrastructure in place.

Gas stations for one.

We switch the gasoline fuel out for a biodiesel or alcohol type fuel.

The power grid is already in place as well.

People don't care where their electricity comes form as long as they can flip the switch and have power.

We hook up a bunch of sustainable wind/solar/geothermal generators to the grid and the problem of power generation is solved.

There was a study done that suggested if we use 1/4 of the state of South Dakota for wind generation we'd be able to power the entire country. Spread out across the nation, wind power is actually a pretty viable source.

We could use solar power in the Southwest where its sunny over 300 days a year.

The solutions are viable and cheap enough.

Its just a question of whether power companies and lobbyists are greedy enough and if the American people are stupid enough to keep paying them.

While it may not be as easy as I said, its not as hard as people make it out to be.

[edit on 2/21/2008 by biggie smalls]

How are you going to make those alcohol and bio diesel fuels? Are you going to farm the crops with wind, water, or geothermal? What about the refinery plants and shipping. You can not send alcohol through the existing oil pipes. Gas station tanks would have to be switched to carry alcohol fuels. Then we get to transportation again. Most cars cannot run on alcohol.
Now to growing the crops. Even at the high cost of oil. Ethanol for one is much to expensive to grow with out government subsidies. Ethanol is a waste of money too much energy goes into making it. For instance here in North Dakota we have an ethanol plant being powered by a coal plant. There was also a study that said bio fuels are doing more damage to the enviornment and costing the tax payer more and wasting crop land. Did you know that this year was the first year America had to import wheat because we did not grow enough. Even with bumper crops in North Dakota and South Dakota. Main reason farmers switched land to corn for ethanol. The technology is just a few years out yet.

By the way I totally agree on the people and lobbyist bit. The companies are going to squeeze out every last drop of oil for profit. We need to dumping large amounts of money into this. Even if we did your suggestion the up keep and infastructure would be moneumental.

This won't effect the price of oil one iota. They can't suck enough oil out of this earth to fill the cars in Asia.

reply to post by ColdWater


Oh it would drop prices. Maybe back down to the 2 too 2.20 area if you could refine it with and drill it fast enough. We in the U.S. could drop prices just by refining more. OPEC has even said we can give you more barrells a day if you could refine it. The combination would put us back to about 50 a barrell. Thats counter productive tho. Seeing as we need to get off oil.

200 billion won't last long.

#1 United States: 20,730,000 bbl/day

Energy Statistics

reply to post by otherhalf


About 2 months worth. That's what people can't understand about ANWAR and the Gulf of Mexico. The habitat you'll destroy forever for a few months of oil.

[edit] Oil shale
Main article: Oil shale reserves
The United States has the largest known deposits of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 2,500 gigabarrels of potentially recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current rates for 110 years. However, oil shale does not actually contain oil, but a waxy oil precursor known as kerogen. For this reason and because there is not yet any significant commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States as of 2008, its oil shale reserves do not meet the petroleum industry definition of proven oil reserves. So the fact that there is at least two hundred billion barrels of recoverable oil logic is that there is an even larger amount of oil shale in the area.

The various attempts to develop the world's oil shale deposits, over a period of over 150 years, have experienced successes when the cost of shale oil production in a given region was less than the price of crude oil or its other substitutes. According to a survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, a surface retorting complex (comprising a mine, retorting plant, upgrading plant, supporting utilities, and spent shale reclamation) is unlikely to be profitable in the United States until crude oil prices range between US$70 to US$95 per barrel (in 2005 dollars). Once commercial plants are in operation and experience-based learning takes place, costs are expected to decline in 12 years to US$35–US$48 per barrel. After production of 1,000 million barrels, costs are estimated to decline further to US$30 – US$40 per barrel. Royal Dutch Shell has announced that its in-situ extraction technology in Colorado could be competitive at prices over US$30 per barrel, while other technologies at full-scale production assert profitability at oil prices even lower than US$20 per barrel. To increase the efficiency of oil shale retorting, several co-pyrolysis processes have been proposed and tested.

A critical measure of the viability of oil shale as an energy source is the ratio of the energy produced by the shale to the energy used in its mining and processing, a ratio known as "Energy Returned on Energy Invested" (EROEI). A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil shale deposits as varying between 0.7-13.3. Royal Dutch Shell has reported an EROEI of three to four on its in-situ development, Mahogany Research Project. An additional economic consideration is the water needed in the oil shale retorting process, which may pose a problem in areas with water scarcity.

The heavy environmental impact associated with oil-shale extraction has been a major bone-o-contention for Al-gore & Co...even above our Northern border.

My oil-sands plays have been languishing for 2yrs. Oil services stocks on the other hand, are a whole other animal

So are regular oil refineries and north dakota state government is going on with thier plans. Apperently bent on getting oil prices dropped. Rightfully so with farmers making a majority of the money here. Oil towns are booming again tho. I think if the used the water Canada doesn't from Devils Lake and the same water that keeps flooding the area for production I think it would be just fine.

Originally posted by kingkn8
The state is also making plans for a state own refinery. The state also has a State owned bank that subsidises many of the oil operations in the state.

Thanks for all the information.
Can you say when the refinery will be built and go on line? Or has that not been said yet.

reply to post by RedGolem

The plan is to have on line by 2009 but I don't think that will happen. Its still in the budget committee's so no public location tho I wouldn't think it would be any farther east then Bismarck. I would think Williston maybe. Mandan already has a refinery and and the communities around it have got coal, ethanol, and coal gasifacation plants. Btw Dickinson is getting a new and the largest in the world coal gasifaction plant. Otherwise I would have thought maybe there for the refinery. I just don't see them having enough housing available with the oil boom and the plant coming in for a refinery.

reply to post by kingkn8


Wow your up as early as I am
OK yes still being in the budget stage really means nothing for having a target date for getting it operational.
You said there are coal gas plants. For those of us who are not in the fossil fuel industry, could you say what a coal gas plant is?

It converts coal into gasoline. The technology has been around since Hitler did to fuel WWII.

reply to post by kingkn8


ok thanks. I was not aware that was being done on the commercial scale. So is that an economical way to produce gasoline?
I can see how that term is some what subjective.