U.S. Says 400-Billion Barrel Bakken Oil Field a ‘Myth’

(CNSNews.com) – Reports circulating on the Internet tell of an oil field spanning parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana where 400 billion barrels of oil supposedly are just waiting to be tapped. However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tells Cybercast News Service that those huge estimates are “a myth.”

A USGS report issued in April estimates that there are between 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in what is referred to as “the Bakken Formation” — well below the 400 billion barrels discussed on the Web, but up from the previous estimate of 151 million barrels made in 1995.


Richard Pollastro, Bakken Formation task leader at the USGS, said the myth stems from a 1999 draft report — never published — by a now-deceased USGS employee, Leigh Price. Price estimated that the Bakken Formation holds up to 400 billion barrels of oil. To put that in perspective, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, has about 260 billion barrels of known oil reserves.

Price, however, died in 2000, before his study could be peer-reviewed and published, and the Bakken Formation became the fool’s gold of the oil industry.

CNS