Can Bakken Oil bring energy independence to the United States?
By now most everyone is aware that North Dakota is the home of the Bakken oil formation.
Oil was discovered in the Bakken in 1951. The Bakken is named after North Dakota farmer Henry Bakken, who owned the land where the formation was initially discovered.
Although North Dakota has been producing oil for the past 60 years, the Bakken was never a major source of the state's production because the tight oil formation proved too technically-challenging and too costly to produce. In 1999 a USGS Geochemist named Leigh Price estimated the total amount of oil contained in the Bakken ranged from 271 billion to 503 billion barrels.
Oil companies started testing various methods of drilling to access the Bakken's hard-to-get oil, namely horizontal drilling. The first horizontal well was drilled in the Bakken in 1987. This method of drilling proved to be successful. As a result, oil production in North Dakota soared. Since then the state has moved up to be the second largest oil-producing state in the country. Second only to Texas.
The Bakken has truly been a game changer. The United States is on track to produce more domestic crude oil than it imports from overseas sources by the end of this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA March 2013 energy report). According to the report, increased shale oil production in both North Dakota and Texas get the credit. Thanks to these vast recources in the shale production, OPEC's stranglehold on oil production is about to come to a startling end. Some are predicting that the United States will be energy independent as early as 2018.
What the United States needs now are more refineries. More refineries will increase gas production which could result in lower fuel prices.
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