Getting Ahead Of One's Headlights

MidwesternEnergyNews is reporting:

The vast Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, a cornerstone of hopes for North American energy production, will need costly, advanced oil recovery strategies in order to tap its full potential over the next few decades, researchers and industry officials say.

Primary oil recovery methods centered on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing will leave 90 to 95 percent of the Bakken and underlying Three Forks oil resource in the ground, ....

So, before you all get excited about the article, note those two data points:

• even at one million bbls of oil per day, the industry is leaving as much as 95% of oil in the ground (think of the potential)
• increased production to reach full potential will occur over the next few decades

I'm not sure what "next few decades" means, but I assume it's more than one, or "they" would have said "ten years." I assume it's more than two decades or "they" would have said two decades. For me, "several decades" means a minimum of thirty years before I have to get too excited about enhanced oil recovery, though I assume most folks assume it will happen more quickly.

It's amazing how so many journalists, it seems, get well ahead of their headlights. We are nowhere close to maxing out primary production in the North Dakota Bakken and some non-specialists are already concerned about secondary and tertiary production.

But the good news:

... every 1% in incremental recovery factor translates into an additional nine billion barrels of estimated ultimate recoverable reserves in the field ...

*******************

Of course that begs the question, one percent of what yields nine billion?

0.01 x ? = 9 billion
9/0.01 = 900 billion barrels of EUR? 

Really? Again, that's why I link the sources.

Again, here's the link and the quote:

“What is the true recovery factor? We still don’t know; we’re still estimating it,” said Stark. However, for perspective, every 1% in incremental recovery factor translates into an additional nine billion barrels of estimated ultimate recoverable reserves in the field, he added. “It’s a remarkably huge field.”

Did he really say that?