With all the needs of the country, the high oil prices, over the top oil company profits, dependence on foreign oil, and talk of lifting decades old drilling moratoriums.

Why doesn't Bush and McCain talk about this?


The Bakken Formation has been a minor producer of crude oil for over a half century. What has increased this formation’s potential is the arrival of mature horizontal drilling technology, now combined with water fracturing recovery techniques. These techniques could turn the Bakken Formation from an inconsequential dud into perhaps the largest oil field on the planet.

How large? In an unpublished research paper he wrote while working as a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Mr. Leigh Price (who died in 2000) calculated a mean estimate of recoverable oil from Bakken at a stupendous 413 billion barrels. This compares to Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves of 267 billion barrels.


http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/feature_articles/2006/ngshock/ngshock.pdf


Stanley, N Dakota is benefitting already.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3246063/9148615

Let me help.
Here's why the Oil Co's Republican employee's dont want you to hear about this.
Why for them to stay competitive they want to lift the decades old moratoriums on drilling!
Its not to help us so much as to help them.

SIDNEY, Mont. -- In the mid-1990s, major oil-exploration companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Gulf Oil Co. and Texaco Co. were shutting down operations here on the remote high plains, abandoning hundreds of nonproducing wells and letting their leases to mineral rights lapse.

Federal and state agencies tracking exploration also considered the region a bust. "I thought my job was going to be turning out the lights," says Jim Halvorson, geologist for Montana's Board of Oil and Gas Conservation. In 2000, his office predicted oil production would rapidly decline toward zero.

But Richard L. Findley, a graying geologist and "wildcat" producer, thought they were all wrong. He bought up leases on the cheap and helped spark a surprising boom in one of the most heavily explored oil regions in the country.

For several years now, major oil companies have taken the approach that there are no more large fields left to find under American soil. U.S. oil production has dropped from 9.2 million barrels a day in 1973 to about 5.4 million barrels today, and the country now imports 60 percent of its oil.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06095/679602-28.stm

Fanta if it was not for the association between the "big oil" here and the Saudis and other over seas power people than this would not be an issue. Bush loves his Saudis, it is well documented. Drilling here will be a "threat" to these associations and people will take a loss here along with over seas.

The major Oil Companies screwed up, they know it, and are now left out of the most major oil find, not just in the US, but in the world.

Mr Finley, a wildcatter took a chance and is now a major player in the oil industry.

Headington Oil Company, Marathon Oil Co, many smaller players, and of course Cheney's Haliburton has investments in Bakken. (Maybe that's why he has been silent about offshore drilling?)

With all this potential oil available, without lifting the moratoriums, the major oil co are going to lose money.
IMO, that's why Bush and McCain are playing the fear factor. Trying to get Americans to climb on board, and pressure the Congress while not mentioning this!
They are receiving payments (campaign donations) for their efforts and if successful will undoubtedly receive more! (promises of after office executive appointments?)

My Name is Fanta46.
I voted for GWB in 2000! (before I saw through his lies.)

And I approve this message!!

The new study on Bakken came out in April.
In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion.[11] Later that month, the state of North Dakota's report [12] estimated that of the 167 billion barrels of oil in-place in the North Dakota portion of the Bakken, 2.1 billion barrels were technically recoverable with current technology

Many people in this country will not believe the obviousness of what you just said Draggonnes.

I am presenting more current, undeniable proof of what many of us have realized for sometime in an attempt to open the eyes of those who refuse to believe!

If you read the whole article. (Its a PDF and I couldnt post it all)

You will see that the USGS study was from 1995. Using old technology which was all they had available at the time.

They are currently doing a new study using more current technology. It is not due out for a year.
With Republicans in charge I doubt they are eager to release the full truth.
Fortuantely, Mr Finely and others have done their own studies, and are already developing the field!

The new study came out in April 2008. It's already available. You can look it up.

The 1995 USGS Assessment of Resources estimated that the Bakken
Fairway, Bakken Intermediate, and Bakken Outlying plays (combined) resources were large, but estimated that
only 151 million barrels (mean estimate) were technically recoverable.3 The Bakken Intermediate (8,185 square
miles) included the area of the Elm Coulee Field.
In contrast to the older USGS estimate, Headington Oil Company, one of the two largest operators in the Elm
Coulee Field, now estimates that the in-place resources of the Elm Coulee Field area are 5 million barrels per
square mile.4 With an assumed 10-percent average recovery factor, Headington estimates primary oil recovery
could be 270 million barrels from the Elm Coulee Field.

With new horizontal drilling and completion technology taken into account, the technically recoverable resource
base for the entire Bakken Formation is potentially much larger. A draft study by the late organic geochemist
Leigh Price6 provides estimates ranging from 271 to 503 billion barrels (mean of 413 billion) of potential
resources in place.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/feature_articles/2006/ngshock/ngshock.pdf

It's not like you to be uninformed. It's a side I thought I'd never see. Here's a link to the new study completed in April 2008.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3021/pdf/FS08-3021_508.pdf

I see that study.
That new Estimate by the USGS is a 25 fold increase to their previous Estimates!
Egg in their faces once. They abandoned the fields, remember?

Plus I dont trust an Administration who are proven liars, and dont expect them to release the truth! (They produced falsified CIA doc when they need them too)

This study Ive posted was taken on site by the Companies making the investments and recovering the oil. (Not in the major oil companies pocket or under their influence.) The original study was done by a former USGS Geologist.
I'll trust them, and either way its a very large find, and never mentioned by the Bush Administration.

Why???

The only one I can find who mentions Bakken is,

An Obama administration will establish a process for early identification of any infrastructure obstacles/shortages or possible federal permitting process delays to drilling in the Bakken Shale formation, the Barnett shale formation, and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy_more#relief