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Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Bakken: The Crown Jewel of America's On-Shore Domestic Oil Play

CNBC is reporting (a reader alerted me to the story).
In the resurgence of US energy production, one spillover effect has been to put relatively obscure places on the map. One of those is Bakken, an oil hub that some believe could challenge the Gulf Coast's prodigious crude output.
Bakken, a region stretching through swaths of North Dakota and Montana, has transformed itself into a major site of US crude production.The formation is now seen as the future of oil drilling in the U.S., and is an epicenter of pipeline expansion projects designed to capitalize on production. Estimates say the region's oil output has more than doubled over the last two years.
According to official data cited by North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources and the Energy Information Agency, Bakken crude production surged from 274,000 barrels per day in January 2011 to 673,000 in January 2013.
Yet private estimates put that figure even higher, stating Bakken generates more than 800,000 barrels per day — with the potential to top one million barrels within the next few years. Analysts expect some 33,000 wells will be drilled there over the next 20 years, with more than 5,000 coming by 2015. 
Flashback: Jane Nielson said:
Frequent Internet users are getting emails about the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana, supposedly a great oil bonanza just waiting to be tapped if only nasty enviros would let it happen. The emails and websites say that Bakken would solve all our petroleum “needs.” (What, me worry about  global warming?)
Don’t believe it. There’s some oil to be gotten out of Bakken, and it’s going to be exploited. But the “bonanza” is nothing but hype.
Flashback: Snopes.