Bakken Formation

The Bakken Formation /ˈbɑːkən/ is a rock unit from the Late Devonian to Early Mississippian age occupying about 200,000 square miles (520,000 km²) of the subsurface of the Williston Basin, underlying parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The formation was initially described by geologist J.W. Nordquist in 1953. The formation is entirely in the subsurface, and has no surface outcrop. It is named after Henry Bakken, a farmer in Tioga, North Dakota who owned the land where the formation was initially discovered, during drilling for oil.

Besides being a widespread prolific source rock for oil when thermally mature, significant producible oil reserves exist within the Bakken formation itself. Oil was first discovered within the Bakken in 1951, but past efforts to produce it have faced technical difficulties. In April 2008, a USGS report estimated the amount of recoverable oil using technology readily available at the end of 2007 within the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels (680,000,000 m³), with a mean of 3.65 billion. Simultaneously the state of North Dakota released a report with a lower estimate of 2.1 billion barrels (330,000,000 m³) of technically recoverable oil in the Bakken. Various other estimates place the total reserves, recoverable and non-recoverable with today's technology, at up to 24 billion barrels. A recent estimate places the figure at 18 billion barrels. In April 2013, the US Geological Survey released a new figure for expected ultimate recovery of 7.4 billion barrels of oil.

Bakken

Bakken may refer to:

Bakken (surname)

Bakken is a surname of Norwegian origin.

People with the surname Bakken

See also