The Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana contain significantly more oil-and-gas resources than previously thought, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reassessment. The survey found an estimated 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable shale oil (resources that can be recovered with current technology but whose precise location is unknown), double its 2008 assessment. The reassessment also found three times as much recoverable natural gas than previously believed to exist.
North Dakota, which leads the nation in job growth, wage increases, and low unemployment, owes much of its success to the shale energy boom and hydraulic fracturing advances. Meanwhile, as national unemployment hovers around 7.5 percent - more than twice the rate of North Dakota -- the federal government's policy toward energy production can only be described as a "bust."
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