Feds Discover Largest Oil, Natural-Gas Reserve in History

National Review:

The federal government has discovered a massive new reserve of oil and natural gas in Texas and New Mexico that it says has the “largest continuous oil and gas resource potential ever assessed.”

“Christmas came a few weeks early this year,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said of the new reserve, which is believed to have enough energy to fuel the U.S. for nearly seven years.

In all, the new reserve is said to contain 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 46.3 billion barrels of oil, and 20 billion barrels of natural-gas liquids, the Interior Department’s U.S. Geological Survey said.

Almost a third of the U.S.’s total crude-oil production comes from the Permian Basin where the reserve was found, making it the biggest shale-oil-producing region in the U.S.

“American strength flows from American energy, and as it turns out, we have a lot of American energy,” said Zinke. “Before this assessment came down, I was bullish on oil and gas production in the United States. Now, I know for a fact that American energy dominance is within our grasp as a nation.”

 

One consequence of oil in TX is the mineral rights issue. It is common to buy land that comes without mineral rights. Not only does this mean that you don't cash in if a bubblin crude is found in your pond, but that the owner of the mineral rights has the right to put a rig on your property. A friend built a factory in the area shown on the above map and one of the big problems was finding land that came with mineral rights - mainly so nobody could move in a put a well on his spread.

 

Bankrupt OPEC with cheap energy.
Use the money from dominating the global energy market to pay off the debt bomb.
Bring domestic manufacturing home with cheap energy prices.
Build a shit ton of thorium salt reactors to make petroleum unnecessary and keep energy cheap in the long haul.

But our political class is the worst in our nation's history and has no loyalty to its citizens so that won't happen.

 

7 years of oil isn't enough to put OPEC out of business. Any oil we find in the US will just delay needing to deal with foreign oil. As much as I think alternative energy is probably pissing into the wind, I'm hopeful that we find ways to wean ourselves off of petroleum and tell the ME to pound their proverbial sand at some point.

 

You'll never bankrupt OPEC, there's a bunch of people in India and China now who are suddenly not poor and want to drive cars, etc.

That said, this is good news because it keeps fuel speculator f***stick retard a**h***s from ruining the entire market, if they are lead to believe that it is
abundant, they're not going to be able to play f***y f*** games with the price as easily.

-Mike

 

Seven years ain’t shit. Do you mean 70 years instead?

 

Use up all of their oil first, then we have the only source left.

Malodave

 

damn, I just filled my tank.

I sure would love to pick up some XOM stock at $20 a share though.

 

And what happens after 7 years?

I think the right way is to use a little to make it last 30-50 years. That will also put pressure on OPEC and lower prices even more. At the same time you continue to buy from them at cheap prices.

Lower prices will also kill US production, which is fine, because as soon as they rise so does US production, so they have to keep prices low. The oil reserve wont go anywhere, so even if prices are so cheap the US cant get the oil, eventually supply will slow and prices will have to increase, and that's when you tap this huge reserve.

As far as paying off debt...that will never happen. Forget about it. No politician will pass a law with a mandatory yearly budget cut, let's say 1-2% per year until we reach 15-20% to pay off the debt. Instead we keep increasing expenses. The debt is going to blow the F-up on our faces, especially all those that will retire 30-50 years from now.

 

your title is quite a bit misleading. the feds didn't discover it. it's been a well known and utilized resource for a while. this is simply a new assessment of existing resources based on new technologies for recovering the resource.

"Although the USGS has previously assessed conventional oil and gas resources in the Permian Basin province, this is the first assessment of continuous resources in the Wolfcamp shale and Bone Spring Formation in the Delaware Basin portion of the Permian. Oil and gas companies are currently producing oil here using both traditional vertical well technology and horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing."
USGS Announces Largest Continuous Oil Assessment in Texas and New Mexico

 

Very true. The Federal Government doesn't do much of anything.

I copied and pasted it from the National Review, had the same thought you did then was too lazy to change it.

 

Is the first word the same as the second but with a Y tacked on, as in: "FANCY FANC"

Or a different naughty word that just coincidentally starts with an F?

 

Lol yes, same word....