he U.S. Geological Survey says it has found the largest continuous oil and gas deposit ever discovered in the United States.
On Tuesday, the USGS announced that a swath of West Texas known as the Wolfcamp shale contains 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
That is nearly three times more petroleum than the agency found in North Dakota's Bakken shale in 2013.
As NPR's Jeff Brady reported, the amount of oil in the Wolfcamp shale formation is nearly three times the amount of petroleum products used by the entire country in a year.
he USGS says all 20 billion barrels of oil are "technically recoverable," meaning the oil could be brought to the surface "using currently available technology and industry practices."
"The Texas discovery is in a place that has been drilled before by conventional methods," Jeff reported for NPR's Newscast Unit. "But now that oil companies use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — they can access reserves that previously were out of reach."
"Changes in technology and industry practices can have significant effects on what resources are technically recoverable, and that's why we continue to perform resource assessments throughout the United States and the world," said Walter Guidroz, a program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program, in the USGS statement.
"Even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more," he said.
Bloomberg reported other companies have announced new oil production plans in the last week:
"ConocoPhillips, the world's largest independent oil producer by market value, increased its estimate for the size of its Wolfcamp holdings on Nov. 10 to 1.8 billion barrels from 1 billion last year. A day earlier, Concho Resources CEO Timothy Leach told investors and analysts that two recent wells it drilled in the Wolfcamp were pumping an average of 2,000 barrels a day each."
The economic effects of extracting the oil and gas from the Wolfcamp shale could be enormous. In North Dakota, a shale-driven oil boom has transformed the landscape and the economy in the past few years, attracting thousands of workers and contributing to falling oil prices.
In some cases, towns that grew quickly when the Bakken shale first started producing oil are now facing steep shortfalls in revenue as the price of oil drops, as we have reported. Falling prices have already hurt Midland, Texas, which is surrounded by oil fields and is in the center of the Wolfcamp shale area.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ounces-its-largest-oil-and-gas-discovery-ever
On Tuesday, the USGS announced that a swath of West Texas known as the Wolfcamp shale contains 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
That is nearly three times more petroleum than the agency found in North Dakota's Bakken shale in 2013.
As NPR's Jeff Brady reported, the amount of oil in the Wolfcamp shale formation is nearly three times the amount of petroleum products used by the entire country in a year.
he USGS says all 20 billion barrels of oil are "technically recoverable," meaning the oil could be brought to the surface "using currently available technology and industry practices."
"The Texas discovery is in a place that has been drilled before by conventional methods," Jeff reported for NPR's Newscast Unit. "But now that oil companies use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — they can access reserves that previously were out of reach."
"Changes in technology and industry practices can have significant effects on what resources are technically recoverable, and that's why we continue to perform resource assessments throughout the United States and the world," said Walter Guidroz, a program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program, in the USGS statement.
"Even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more," he said.
Bloomberg reported other companies have announced new oil production plans in the last week:
"ConocoPhillips, the world's largest independent oil producer by market value, increased its estimate for the size of its Wolfcamp holdings on Nov. 10 to 1.8 billion barrels from 1 billion last year. A day earlier, Concho Resources CEO Timothy Leach told investors and analysts that two recent wells it drilled in the Wolfcamp were pumping an average of 2,000 barrels a day each."
The economic effects of extracting the oil and gas from the Wolfcamp shale could be enormous. In North Dakota, a shale-driven oil boom has transformed the landscape and the economy in the past few years, attracting thousands of workers and contributing to falling oil prices.
In some cases, towns that grew quickly when the Bakken shale first started producing oil are now facing steep shortfalls in revenue as the price of oil drops, as we have reported. Falling prices have already hurt Midland, Texas, which is surrounded by oil fields and is in the center of the Wolfcamp shale area.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ounces-its-largest-oil-and-gas-discovery-ever
