Everyone’s Excited About The Bakken Formation
Published by gwen April 6th, 2008 in energy, Technology, Uncategorized. Tags: No Tags.The Bakken formation, a huge oil reserve covering most of the west side of North Dakota, is gaining some well-deserved attention. I counted at least five online news stories about it yesterday. New technology is allowing oil companies to access these oil reserves (through horizontal drilling, in many cases) that were previously untouchable.
One of the best of the articles I reviewed yesterday came from Energy and Capital. It’s full of facts and figures that demonstrate what the Bakken formation is all about.
It’s about boosting our oil reserve by ten times–and all within our own nation. For ND, it means a tremendous economic burst as well as a sure way to help provide domestic fuel for the rest of the nation. Who can complain?
At this point it’s still a matter of profitability. In many places, drilling the Bakken can be profitable given today’s crude prices. In other areas of the Bakken, it may not still be cost effective. At least people are eager to find out.
One factor which seems to be absent in this round of Bakken Fever™ is manipulation by OPEC. It used to be that oil supplying nations would flood the market, dropping the price, as soon as they’d see their prime customer, the good ol’ US of A, starting up domestic exploration. With the developing world’s appetite for fossil fuels now, however, there will still be plenty of money in the Chinas and Indias of the world. For that reason I don’t expect OPEC will be too concerned with discouraging our domestic exploration (what little bit the eco-alarmists will allow).
Clint F
BismarckMandanBlog.com