Top Job

Top Job
Top Job

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

U.S. Oil Shale Under Part of Wyoming Estimated at 1.45 Trilliom Barrels

Green River shale oil in place put at 1.45 trillion bbl

A trillion barrels is 1 million million  (1,000,000,000,000) barrels in U.S. terms. According to the EIA Saudi Arabia has 266.75 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, so this report would seem to give the U.S. even more oil than Saudi Arabia, though it is shale oil.

The EIA reports the U.S. crude oil and products imports 9,440,000 barrels/day. Assuming you can recover it, a trillion barrels would replace those imports for 288 years, by my rough calculations.

If these numbers are correct, why is this not a bigger news story?

You can find the supporting U.S.G.S. report in pdf format here.

UPDATE: Speaking of big energy finds, a report of a large gas find off Africa, which is a good thing, I would think for Mozambique:
An Eni group has drilled a giant gas discovery at the first well in Area 4 off northern Mozambique that the company said is the largest operated find in its history.
***
“The outstanding volume of natural gas discovered will lead to a large scale gas development with a combination of both export to regional and international markets through LNG and supply to the domestic market. This will support the industrial and economic growth of the country,” Eni said.

4 comments:

  1. Davod3:03 AM

    Don't worry. It won't be long before Obama declares most of the land a National Preserve for the protection of endangered shale.

    You think I am joking, don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nope, I'm sure there is some endangered species of leech in the water there someplace.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:13 PM

    The endangered species of leech would be Democrat!

    ReplyDelete