4.3 billion barrels of oil in South Dakota

Originally posted by Mdv2
Its OPEC that controls the supply of oil, not the companies.

PFFFT...

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a large group of countries[1][2] made up of Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Ecuador (which rejoined OPEC in November 2007). The organization has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, hosting regular meetings between the oil ministers of its member states.

OPEC's influence on the market has been called into question. Several members of OPEC alarmed the world and triggered high inflation across both the developing and developed world when they used oil embargoes in the 1973 oil crisis. OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has diminished somewhat since then, due to the subsequent discovery and development of large oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, the opening up of Russia, and market modernization.

en.wikipedia.org...

OPEC DOES NOT control American oil

Also I read somewhere that the US imports over 95% of the oil that it uses and any domestic oil that is found is put in our reserves but I dont know if that is the truth or not.
I live in S. Texas and there are oil and natural gas wells popping up all over this region, add that to the fact that we occupy the country with one of the largest oil reserves in the world and the price of gas STILL keeps going up

[edit on 4/12/2008 by Kr0n0s]

Originally posted by Kr0n0s
I live in S. Texas and there are oil and natural gas wells popping up all over this region, add that to the fact that we occupy the country with one of the largest oil reserves in the world and the price of gas STILL keeps going up

Well add THIS to your pipe and smoke it...

We have oil

* "And surely the world is running out of oil, right? Wrong! The world has plenty of oil, enough says the US Geological Survey to last for at least the next several hundred years or longer. Worldwide, there are 14,000 billion barrels of crude oil reserves. In its World Petroleum Assessment 2000 report, the global reserves of crude oil were estimated to be some 3,000 billion barrels." --Alan Caruba, February 17, 2005.

* "As a shareholder I also know that of all the oil ever known to exist in the Texas and Oklahoma oil fields, only one-third has been removed from the ground, with the remaining two-thirds still in the ground. Why? Because it is cheaper to buy Saudi Arabian oil. When the world price of oil goes up, the oil industry will bring their Texas/Oklahoma oil out of the ground. So again, we do not need more oil in America. All we need is already here in capped oil wells." --Sam Booher, a shareholder in ExxonMobil, Phillips Petroleum Company and BP-Amoco Oil Companies and chairman of the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club. Oil and Gas Reporter, September 1, 2001.

* "Officials from Saudi Arabia’s oil industry and the international petroleum organizations shocked a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington yesterday with an announcement that the Kingdom’s previous estimate of 261 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum has now more than tripled, to 1.2 trillion barrels. ... Additionally, Saudi Arabia’s key oil and finance ministers assured the audience — which included US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — that the Kingdom has the capability to quickly double its oil output and sustain such a production surge for as long as 50 years." Arab News, April 4, 2004.

www.sourcewatch.org...

It appears that our previous assumption that all oil comes only from fossils may be wrong... previously empty oil wells have mysteriously refilled

Are Old Oil Fields Refilling?
www.kuro5hin.org...

Sustainable Oil?

A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

www.rense.com...

Oil Reserves Are Increasing
www.lewrockwell.com...

Running Out of Oil? Not!

Oh, did I mention that some of the oil fields that were thought to have been pumped dry are refilling slowly from below? Geologists are somewhat mystified by this development and there are a number of theories why this is happening. (Wallace Wattles would not have been surprised.) One of the most controversial theories was proposed by brilliant physicist Thomas Gold, who proposed that oil is not decaying dinosaurs. as we have been taught, but the product of a massive methane-based biosphere beneath the Earth's crust. If Gold is right, we've only scratched the surface of the oil supply.

www.createsuccessseminars.com...

The “Abiotic Oil” Controversy
www.energybulletin.net...

So don't expect to stop using 'fossil fuels' anytime soon



You want prices to drop BOYCOTT THEM

No no American will do without gasoline so a boycott would not work right?

WRONG

Pick on the big one.. say EXXON (formerly Standard Oil) with connections to Bush and you know what else...

BOYCOTT ALL EXXON stations and their subsiduaries... Buy your gas from independents that do not buy from EXXON

Do that a few months and see what happens... I wonder how THAT would reflect against their "Best Ever Quarter Profits" thanks to the war..

Hell what happened to Americans? Are we such wussies that we won't fight back?

Originally posted by rhombus24
I think this is way too weird, something just isn't right. Does anybody here really think that they didn't know about THAT MUCH oil.

Oh they were perfectly well aware of that oil formation and just how much oil could eventually be extracted from it.

Saskatchewan could be sitting on 25 billion to 100 billion barrels of sweet, light crude oil in the Bakken formation in the southeast part of the province, according to industry and government estimates.

By comparison, the heavy oil resource in west-central Saskatchewan, which is considered to have great potential for future production, is estimated to be 25 billion barrels of oil in place.

www.canada.com...

Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated at $20-$40 a barrel.

www.nextenergynews.com...

The Bakken Formation, initially described by geologist J.W. Nordquist in 1953,[1] is an immense blanket of rock from the Late Devonian to Early Mississippian age occupying a substantial part of the subsurface of the Williston Basin, Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan. Covering about 200,000 square miles (520,000 km²), Bakken serves as a significant oil reservoir, and until recently has long frustrated efforts to extract its oil, initially discovered in 1951.

The greatest Bakken oil production comes from Elm Coulee Oil Field, Richland County, Montana, where production began in 2000 and is expected to ultimately total 270 million barrels. In 2007, production from Elm Coulee averaged 53,000 barrels per day — more than the entire state of Montana a few years earlier.[5]

en.wikipedia.org...

Enough to reduce our foreign energy dependency, which would be good but then think about your world changing from these new conflicts.

This must be the first step...

What new conflicts? Wouldn't the US national security state lose much of it's support for foreign wars and interventions if it become relatively widely understood that the US had a large reserve of oil in it's own back yard?

Stellar

Originally posted by Mdv2
Its OPEC that controls the supply of oil, not the companies.

They why would their oil trade take place in dollars or happen on the US and British dominated NYMEX and LPE? Is that really 'control'?

Apart from that, what's so big about this news? Oil is sold on the world market where everyone has access to it, China included. They keep purchasing more and more.

Sure China is ramping up consumption and oil is sold on a world market but what do you do when you would rather not keep dollar reserves and thus encourage the US economy and it's interventionist policies?

We have to find a substitute for fossil fuels, and I would not be surprised if they've already found a solution, however, oil is too profitable to let go yet and it's also a political tool.

For someone who seems to know this much you seem easily confused by the popular propaganda of OPEC control and a 'free market' in oil....

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX


Oh they were perfectly well aware of that oil formation and just how much oil could eventually be extracted from it.

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil field...
The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then ...

www.nextenergynews.com...
Bakken serves as a significant oil reservoir, and until recently has long frustrated efforts to extract its oil, initially discovered in 1951.

The greatest Bakken oil production comes from Elm Coulee Oil Field, Richland County, Montana, where production began in 2000 ...

Thanks,

Marathon oil has been drilling (at One discovery Well) there for awhile and is scheduled to invest in another 300 wells, capable of horizontal drilling.
?[Who Owns Marathon Oil]?...another thread topic for a CT researcher

the 'recoverable' liquid petroleum is impregnating between the layers of solid Shale...and that has been the technoligical problem all along (since the 1951 discovery of the interlaced resevoir)..
but woth the new horizontal drilling/extraction, eventually only the solid shale will remain...and then processing the shale into a synthetic oil will be ramped up (that is IF we are still an advanced civilized world)

Originally posted by Rockpuck
lol explain to me how you plan on "slant drilling" rocks? ..

Shale is a brittle rock that forms in layers, usually out of sediment from lakes, rivers and so forth. It can also be produce from lakes, seas and so on with the decay of animals mixed in, making it a biological rock formation .. which is what oil shale is.

No, that's what they claim shale is presuming a biotic origin of oil. I suppose there is far more of a argument for shale as biotic in origin but it's hard to trust known liars.

The rock has to be extracted .. there is no "well" .. and the mining of these rocks will lead to SD being a environmental wasteland.

Only if you do not spent a small fraction of the large profits to fill in the land and generally tidy up after yourself. Plenty of such studies have proven that that no major long term ecological disaster needs to result and some countries have proven that it's a perfectly reasonable expenditure of either corporate or national funds.

How short our memories are!

I worked at the U.S. Department of Energy's Laramie Energy Technology Center (LETC) as part of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation task force in the late 1970s & early 80s, & before that as a senior engineer for Talley Industries. Our goal was to prove that in-situ processing of oil shale & tar sand was both technologically & economically feasible. We proved both, based on the price of oil just above $35/barrel.

Hydraulically fracturing the oil shale was the trick, along with maintaining an adequate void volume using sand as a proppant so that in-situ combustion could occur. We were able to produce sufficient oil from even mid-grade shale to make the process easily viable, & were even working on a mine-mouth power-generation plant. The last problem we were working on was how to control the carbon-hydrogen stoichiometry while removing the trace heavy metals, when we were shut down by then-President Reagan.

It was the DOE's responsibility to prove that commercialization was a profitable idea, & we worked closely with Shell, Chevron, & several other oil producers. It was just a very bad decision on the part of the feds to close us down that keeps us from having a lot less problems with foreign oil today.

www.econbrowser.com...

In 1995 Estonia's economy continued its upwards trend as the GDP is estimated to have increased by 4% compared with 1994,
a 14% decrease in 1992. By yearend 1995, almost three-fourth's of the country's large state enterprises had been privatized with
the next stage of privatization systems, and ports, including Estonslanets, the national oil shale producer, Esti Energia, Esti
Telekom, the Estonian Railways, and the Tallinn port.The Estonian mining law passed in 1994 establishes
requirements for environmental protection for mining as well as providing legislation regarding exploration and extraction. The
country has reclaimed over 80% of the more than 10,000 hectares of land disturbed by oil shale mining. Oil shale was a
major source of energy, but its use in powerplants was causing serious environmental problems. Almost all of the lan d
reclaimed from oil shale mining is in timber and only a very small amount returned to agricultural use, owing in part to
difficulties encountered in removing, handling, and replacing overburden horizons during the mining cycle. The potential
exists to reclaim larger areas for appropriate species of crop s and grasses.

minerals.usgs.gov...

So it's not a question of land gone for all eternity and i am sure the US government can manage a better reclamation effort than the small Estonian economy could.

Stellar

This is not good news. Because the oil companies are going to send it over seas anyway. Why? Because we aren't the only ones depending on oil. Think about the rest of the world as well. Yes oil prices are high, but our economy is good and we benefit from a lot of things. Hell, were in a War and our economy is barely bothered by it. What the government is doing is making a better world for the entire world. Not just for the U.S. We are lucky here in the U.S. we have many privileges. I used to live in Europe, and it is better here. Not really better because I felt free over there, now I feel like I'm trapped here. The oil prices are bad over there too. My country depends on the U.S. for oil and many other things. The United States helps many countries, we just don't hear about it. But it is bad that they depend on them for oil. Its like playing Russian Roulette!

We should stop using oil period. There are many alternatives. Some that cost less and as much as oil today. But why don't we? Its because were being manipulated by the OIL companies, or OPEC. Either way, we are taught to depend on oil. But there are many ways we can travel. Just think how people a hundred years ago traveled. Why do we feel that it is necessary to travel by car? Even if we do wish to travel by car we don't have to use oil do we? I don't really believe in Global Warming, but I do recognize that what we are doing today hurts the planet we live in tomorrow. We have to change, you've heard it before, but it starts with you. Then you will recognize that others are doing the same.

Good Thread!

reply to post by Trams


We use oil because we have to use it to survive in this day and age.
How would we commute the 10-50 miles to work everyday without an automobile? Dont say we need to get a car that uses alternative fuel
because it just isnt practical yet.
How many fuel stations have you seen that carry methane, hydrogen or natural gas?
I have never seen one and I've never seen one that has plugin stalls for electric only engines.
Sure the hybrids are nice and a little more efficient, I would love to have one myself but you still arent going anywhere in a hybrid without gasoline.
So, for the time being, owning a vehicle that uses alternate fuels, just isnt practical and thats the way BIG OIL wants to keep it.
Auto Manufacturers arent going to mass produce a hydrogen fueled car until there are stations that carry hydrogen fuel.
And as long as BIG OIL has the money and the power to slam down these alternative fuel companies, then they just dont stand a chance..

Oil shale extraction has progresed far beyond the methods being used 10-15 years ago. Still, there remain many hurdles and enviornmental concerns. See the Wikipedia link for a pretty good overview of various methods available. The technologies have come a long way since the early days of simply runing the shale through a crusher for extraction.

en.wikipedia.org...

At any rate, if oil is truly a byproduct of natural processes within the earth, we may never need this shale oil...

Originally posted by Kr0n0s
Auto Manufacturers arent going to mass produce a hydrogen fueled car until there are stations that carry hydrogen fuel.
And as long as BIG OIL has the money and the power to slam down these alternative fuel companies, then they just dont stand a chance..

Well there is one factor that you all forgot to consider... everyone assumes that 'alternative fuels' will be brought to us by someone OTHER than the BIG OIL companies..

Two years ago I did a Convention here in Las Vegas. Our client was Shell Oil. I personally unloaded the new Hydrogen pump from the crate and helped set the display. Shell promised a "Hydrogen Hyway" up both seabaords within 10 years.

The pump is safe to use ( a key problem until now... imagine some idiot smoking while refueling hydrogen... and a static spark WILL set this stuff off)

But here is the thing most people fail to consider... for a new fuel provider to make a difference, they would have to build stations across the nation to dispense... but Shell already has the infrastructure...

Shell Hydrogen opens two new refuelling stations in China and North America

17/11/2007

Shell Hydrogen helps to open two more refuelling stations in Shanghai and the City of White Plains in New York to help create a global network of hydrogen stations to support the eventual introduction of fuel cell cars.

www.shell.com...

H2Mobility: Hydrogen Vehicles Worldwide
www.netinform.net...

Bush filling up at the first official Shell Hydrogen Station in Washington DC...




Here is the exact pump I set up...

President Tours Hydrogen Fueling Station, Discusses Research
Shell Service Station
Washington, D.C.
THE PRESIDENT: This is the beginning of some fantastic technology. And thanks for having us out here. We're going to look at some other vehicles here in a minute, but, you know, hydrogen is the wave of the future. And this country is going to have to use technology to diversify away from hydrocarbons. We're too dependent on foreign sources of energy today, and one way to diversify away from hydrocarbons is to use hydrogen, the byproduct of which will be water and not exhausts which pollute the air.

President George W. Bush is led by Rick Scott, Operations and Safety Coordinator, Shell Hydrogen, L.L.C., through the visitor center exhibit at a Washington D.C. Shell Service Station equipped with a hydrogen fueling station Wednesday, May 25, 2005. The station is the first integrated gasoline/hydrogen station in North America and will service a fleet of six GM fuel cell vehicles, which were developed in collaboration with the Department of Energy. White House photo by Paul Morse So I'm excited to be part of a technological revolution that's going to change the country. It won't happen overnight. It's going to take a fair amount of research and development to make sure hydrogen is attractive and reasonable -- is able to be manufactured at reasonable price, distributed in a wide way for consumer satisfaction.

But it's coming. We're spending about $1.2 billion on hydrogen research. America leads the world in hydrogen research. It's a part of our efforts to help diversify away from hydrocarbons. And the problem we face today at the gas pump is we're too dependent on foreign sources of energy.

So thanks for showing us this. It's exciting. It's the early stages of what will be available to a lot of Americans. Thank you.

www.whitehouse.gov...

Sooo there you have it... BIG OIL will STILL get your buck... even when we switch to Hydrogen...

And it seems they have no problem selling this to the Chinese as well



Feel better now?

:shk:


[edit on 13-4-2008 by zorgon]

The Bakken field has nothing to do with south dakota. This field is in roughly the same area as the williston basin. Which has been producing coal for years. For that matter North Dakota and Eastern has been producing oil from the Bakken fields for decades. The 4.3 Billion barrells is the offcial estimate from the USGS. This is all recoverable oil. Bad news is that North Dakota already has maxed its oil shipping capacity. So there is strong talk now of pushing through a state owned refinery. The talk of that started when last fall farmers had to stop harvesting because we ran out of diesel. That lasted for about two weeks. The amout of shale oil tho sitting in this field is suppose to be just absolutely mind boggling tho.

What I dont understand is, why isnt this bigger news? With fuel costs approaching 4.00 a gallon and all of the cries about us needing to be free of the dependency on Arab oil, news like this should be all over the network news and the cable news channels.
Also, the only time that I've ever heard the major news groups mention alternative fuels is when they will do a short piece on someone that drives
across the country on oil recycled from chinese restaurants. They will cover the story like its something outrageous that some crackpot scientist has done, instead of giving it serious coverage and tell people that this is possible and it is real.
I still believe that hydrogen has gotten a bad rap in this country or maybe the world, because of the Hindenburg disaster about 80 years ago.

I think there are two reasons this isn't bigger news. Granted this is the largest oil discovery in the lower 48 states ever. I think this isn't big news because there is so much bad economic and war stories. The other reason is because it is going to take years for this too be gotten out of the ground. It may mitigate pricles little. But until the us has more refinery power which is the main reason for gas prices and one of the reasons for higher food prices. Also I think the oil companies are taking there profits and trying to improve the technology to switch the next fuel system. I agree it will be Hydrogen however I don't see it being feesable money wise for another 5-10 years at least for mass scale production. Then you have to have people to buy the products and retro fit filling stations change all the pipes that ship it and so on. So we would be talking before an actual conversion to hydrogen would be at the earliest 50-75 years.

reply to post by enigma77


I am a driller for an oil co. and i have drilled many horizontal wells and i can assure you that you have nothing to worry about in the line of sink holes. The well is any where from 2 to 4,ooo feet below you and the hole will only be about 9" in diameter. Imagine a small colvert 3,000 feet under you even if it did collapse would you know about it no.

reply to post by cav01c14


you must like paying 5.00 a gallon gas prices

reply to post by DalairTheGreat


How many minreal rights do they have and how much oil is under the land they own most countries have been over taken by other countries why don't the get acused of steeling land short and simple the indians got beat and defeated so get over it

Green Valley has an estimated TWO TRILLION barrels of shale oil.....

www.abovetopsecret.com...'