FAQ's about Energy

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Oil has been produced from the Bakken Formation since the 1950's and, as of March 2009, cumulative oil production from the Bakken Formation totaled about 164 million barrels (up from 149 million barrels in December 2008 and 135 million barrels in September 2008). This production comes from about 1,849 wells. Please see our slideshow presentation for context at: http://energy.usgs.gov/flash/Bakken_slideshow.swf.

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Please see the Bakken Formation fact sheet at http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3021/. There is a table on page 2 of the fact sheet that provides 5%, 50%, 95%, and mean probabilities of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids. As of March 2009, cumulative oil production from the Bakken Formation totaled about 164 million barrels (up from 149 million barrels in December 2008 and 135 million barrels in September 2008).

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences, such as those in conventional accumulations. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

In 2000, the USGS assessed undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas in Saudi Arabia at 87 billion barrels (USGS 2000 World Petroleum Assessment: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/WEcont/regions/reg2/r2saud.pdf). The Energy Information Administration records current proven oil reserves (those expected to be recovered) in Saudi Arabia as 269 billion barrels (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/Profile.html).

In 2007, the Bakken Formation produced approximately 26 million barrels of oil. As of March 2009, cumulative oil production from the Bakken Formation totaled about 164 million barrels (up from 149 million barrels in December 2008 and 135 million barrels in September 2008). In 2008, approximately 7,117 million barrels (19,498 barrels/day) of crude oil and petroleum products were consumed in the United States. (Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimate at http://www.eia.doe.gov/). For additional Petroleum Basic Statistics, please see the EIA webpage http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html.

For additional information go to http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

It is difficult to determine if oil from the Bakken Formation, or any of the formations we have done assessments on, could offset other sources of oil. A number of logistical and economic factors affect current and future production, and oil deposits are typically produced for many decades. For these reasons, the USGS does not make forecasts about the future potential of a particular resource to resolve national energy needs.

However, the USGS does assessments of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources in the U.S. and the world. We also conduct assessments involving other geologic based fuels. You can find our assessments on-line at http://energy.usgs.gov/. The USGS does this research and makes it publicly available so that policy makers, energy planners, land and resource managers, Congress, the Administration, and others, including the public, know what potential resources there are so as to be better informed concerning the energy debate.

For additional information go to http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

To view maps of volcanoes visit the USGS online store at http://store.usgs.gov/ and look under the heading Maps>Hazards.

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an assessment of our Nation's geothermal resources. Geothermal power plants are currently operating in six states: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. See Fact Sheet 2008-3082 "Assessment of Moderate- and High-Temperature Geothermal Resources of the United States".

Iceland also makes great use of its geothermal resources.

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Total per-barrel costs of production are more complicated and involve other factors such as costs to lease land and royalties. One place to look for that kind of information is the quarterly and annual reports filed by oil and gas producers to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Those reports are usually available on the internet at the companies' web sites.

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Concerning future drilling plans, please contact either the Montana or North Dakota State Geological Surveys (respectively, http://www.mbmg.mtech.edu/, https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/.

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

For additional information go to: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Although there have been several published and unpublished estimates of the volumes of oil and gas in the Bakken Formation, there is no agreement on the actual volume of resource remaining in the Formation. There is no way to know how much is in the Bakken Formation or any formation until the area is actually drilled and produced. Estimates are made using the best available information at the time, and different estimates use different assumptions. The USGS uses a consistent methodology, so our estimates are comparable, and our assumption and methodology are published, so people know what we did. Our assessment methodology can be found on-line at http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/methodology.html.

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation, and a mean estimate of 3.65 billion barrels, is an estimate of what industry may recover if the entire area of prospective Bakken Formation is produced using current technology. The current USGS mean estimate is a 25-fold increase over the previous USGS estimate, in 1995, of 151 million barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation. As of March 2009, cumulative oil production from the Bakken Formation totaled about 164 million barrels (up from 149 million barrels in December 2008 and 135 million barrels in September 2008).

For additional information go to http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/oilgas/noga/ (choose Williston/Bakken in the interactive map to see all available documents).

Go to the Energy Resources website at http://energy.usgs.govfor a newly released gas hydrates assessment of the North Slope of Alaska. A fact sheet is at http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3073.

The zebra mussel has the potential to inhabit most of the fresh waters of the U.S. and may impact a variety of native aquatic species and eventually entire ecosystems. They also have had a large economic impact already. Many power plants and water users have had to spend millions of dollars cleaning out zebra mussels from their facilities. In addition, more money has been spent on retrofitting facilities with devices to keep zebra mussels out and to monitor for them. These costs, unfortunately, get passed along to the consumers.

The USGS estimates that there are 85.4 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas from natural gas hydrates on the Alaskan North Slope. This is the first-ever resource estimate of technically recoverable natural gas hydrates in the world.

This assessment shows that gas hydrates could add significantly to the U.S. energy mix. The Alaskan North Slope holds one of the nation's largest deposits of technically recoverable natural gas.