Oil drillers targeting the Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota and eastern Montana have produced 1 billion barrels of crude oil, according to recent data.
Drilling companies first targeted the Bakken formation in Montana in 2000, and moved into North Dakota in 2005, using advanced horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques to recover oil trapped deep below the surface.
North Dakota has generated 852 million bbls of Bakken crude, while Montana has produced approximately 151 million bbls in Q1 2014.
Continental Resources Inc., one of the largest operators in the Bakken shale formation, said two-thirds of its production has come in the past three years. Company chairman, Harold Hamm, told the Associated Press: “It’s been quite a revelation that’s happened there. It’s right in line with expectations. This is tight rock and it’s quite a job to wring barrels out of it.”
Hamm estimates the Bakken formation holds over 20 billion bbls of oil.
Edited from various sources by Katie Woodward