USGS: 47 MMbbl of Oil, 876 Bcf of Gas in Conventional Rockies’ Basins

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released its assessment of potential undiscovered oil and gas formations in Wyoming as well as parts of southern Montana and western South Dakota and Nebraska. The USGS found the areas contain technically recoverable resources of 47 MMbbl of oil and 876 Bcf of natural gas.

Since exploration began in the area in the 1920s, the upper Paleozoic reservoirs of the Wind River, Bighorn and Powder River basins have produced 4 Bbbl of oil—about the same amount the U.S. consumes in six months at the current rate of consumption, USGS said.

“USGS energy assessments typically focus on undiscovered resources—areas where science tells us there may be a resource that industry hasn’t discovered yet. In this case, after a century of production, the upper Paleozoic reservoirs of the Wind River, Bighorn and Powder River basins have little remaining undiscovered oil,” said Sarah Ryker, acting director of the USGS.

The range of assessments produced has changed with the technology available to produce oil.  In 1995, USGS conducted assessments of unconventional, technically recoverable resources. 

“The shift to horizontal drilling with fracking has revolutionized oil production, and we’ve changed with it,” said Christopher Schenk, USGS geologist. He noted that the Bakken Shale deposit in North Dakota had a few hundred vertical wells when the USGS first assessed the area. Today, that number has grown to tens of thousands of wells.

The USGS Energy Resources Program assesses the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources in priority geologic provinces in the U.S. around the world. Two methodologies are used by the USGS: one for assessing conventional oil and gas resources and one for assessing unconventional (continuous) oil and gas resources, such as shale gas and coalbed gas.