Does the Bakken Formation contain more oil than Saudi Arabia?
Probably not. In 2000, the USGS assessed undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas in Saudi Arabia at 87 billion barrels (USGS 2000 World Petroleum Assessment ) compared to a mean estimate of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in the Bakken formation of 7.4 billion barrels. In addition, Saudi Arabia contains even more oil that has already been found, which is reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration as current proven oil reserves.
It is worth keeping in mind that there is no certain method to determine the exact volume of oil that is contained in the Bakken Formation or any formation. However, the estimate of technically recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. “Continuous” means that the oil is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as a discrete, localized occurrence.
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USGS Releases New Oil and Gas Assessment for Bakken and Three Forks Formations
On April 30, 2013, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released an updated oil and gas resource assessment for the Bakken Formation and a new assessment for the Three Forks Formation in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. The assessments found that the formations contain an estimated mean of 7.4 billion barrels (BBO) of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil. The updated...
3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—
North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.
Well Drill in the Bakken Formation near Williston
Water truck in background is providing maintenance water to a producing well drilled in the Bakken Formation near Williston, North Dakota.
Bakken Well in North Dakota
Bakken well in North Dakota (Photograph by Joanna Thamke, USGS).
Bakken Drill Rig
A drill rig in the Bakken oil field in Stark County, western North Dakota.
Bakken Drill Rig
A drill rig in the Bakken oil field in Stark County, western North Dakota.
Oil Well being Drilled into the Bakken Formation
Oil well being drilled into the Bakken Formation in North Dakota in 2015.
Bakken Oil Well
Oil-well pads dotting the landscape of typical badland topography. Thousands of new wells are drilled into the Bakken and Three Forks annually, making this one of the most productive plays in the Nation.
CRC, Core from Bakken Region
Researchers at the CRC can study cores from one area or compare cores from many different areas. This cross section is from the Bakken Formation, Williams, County, North Dakota. Since 2008 approximately 450 million barrels of oil have been produced from the Bakken and the underlying Three Forks Formation. In the 2013 assessment, the USGS estimated mean undiscovered volumes
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