The USGS released the following on April 10th:

North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

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Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

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The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

The Obama Campaign really doesn't care:

"Since the gas lines of the '70s," he says, "Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence ... but nothing's changed. Except now Exxon's making $40 billion a year and we're paying $3.50 for gas.

"I'm Barack Obama. I don't take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists and I won't let them block change anymore. They'll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We'll invest in alternative energy and create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil. ..."

Technically recoverable means that using current technology, oil can be recovered from the type of geological formation in which the oil and gas are found.

Technically recoverable doesn't necessarily mean such a project is financially worth it. And that may be especially true if Mr. Obama were to win the presidency and then implement his windfall profits tax.

This discovery would certainly lessen the energy crisis here, if oil companies are left alone to make the billions of dollars in investments the exploitation of such resources will cost them. But make it financially unattractive and an 'energy crisis' becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. As I see it, that's precisely where Mr. Obama is headed with his populist "windfall profits" tax.
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First published at QandO.