The single largest oil field ever found in the United States stretches across North Dakota, Montana and southeastern Saskatchewan. It’s called the Bakken oil field. A 2006 report by the Energy Information Administration stated, “A study provides estimates ranging up to 413-plus-billion barrels of oil. And, unlike the tar from Canada’s oil sands, Bakken crude needs little refining. Also, it’s sweet, meaning it’s low in sulfur; and, best of all, Bakken could produce more oil than even now is estimated.
If the U.S. Geological Survey estimate of 413-billion barrels is accurate, the Bakken oil field would dwarf the world’s biggest oil field, which is in Saudi Arabia. It has about 55-billion barrels of oil. The USGS says that the Bakken field holds as much as 4.3-billion barrels that can be recovered using today’s engineering techniques. That’s a fraction of the oil estimated to be there, but it’s still the largest accumulation of crude in the 48 contiguous United States. Undoubtedly, inventive American minds will come up with ways to extract a greater percentage of the oil at Bakken.
Think of what that means. Based on data from the Energy Information Agency, the U.S. imported about 6-million barrels per day from OPEC countries in 2007. Considering oil prices averaged $72 a barrel, that means we shelled out $426-million every day.
Many Americans think that we’re going to have to kick the Middle Eastern oil habit some day, because many OPEC members hate the United States. And, producing our own oil will mean more jobs for Americans.
This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.
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