Investopedia: How Much Oil is There in the Bakken -- North Dakota, USA

 A lot of good information in this story by Eric Fox.

When you finish reading the notes below, you might be interested in a very good discussion going on over at the Bakken Shale Discussion Group regarding almost the very same question, but limiting the discussion to "currently recoverable Bakken/TFS oil. [By the way, I still prefer referring to the Three Forks as the TFS rather than TF, but, I do believe that Three Forks is becoming the accepted name.]

Eric Fox summarizes the current estimates of recoverable Bakken oil:

• CLR's CEO Harold Hamm: 20 billion barrels (in fact, he has said as high as 24 billion barrels); he includes both the Bakken and TFS in his estimates, as two separate non-communicating formations
• US Geological Survey: 3.65 billion bbls of oil; plus 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 148 million bbls of natural gas liquids (2008 Survey); their 1995 report said the Bakken had only 151 million barrels
• North Dakota's assessment: 149 billion bbls of oil in place, of which 2.1 billion is recoverable (2008); two years later, ND assessed the TFS at 20 billion barrels in place, of which 1.9 billion is recoverable
• Dr Leigh Price: Saudi Arabian estimates; estimated the Bakken could generate between 271 billion and 503 billion bbls of oil with an average of 413 billion bbls; Price said his numbers are higher because he felt the Bakken oil was trapped in that formation and had not migrated to the Mission Canyon or Madison formation; Leigh put a recoverable estimate at 50 percent, suggesting that approximately 200 billion barrels of oil could be recovered

Fox provides an update of net acreage held by several Bakken players:

• CLR: nearly 900,000
• Whiting: 579,000
• Oasis: 300,000
• BEXP: 368,000
• KOG: 72,000
• Hess: 500,000
• GeoResources: 46,000
• Marathon: 385,000
• Occidental: 200,000
• SM Energy: 81,000

Although net acreage is important, just as in other real estate, in the Bakken it's all about location, location, location. So, without that information, be careful how you look at these numbers. I did not realize, or had forgotten that Whiting had that amount of acreage.

I'm hoping CLR hits an even million acres just for the bragging rights. [CLR has close to 900,000 net acres in the Bakken and the Three Forks. Note: earlier I have posted about the risk of double-counting acres in the Williston Basin. To the best of my knowledge, oil companies are not doing that but watch out for it in presentations.]