DAKOTA OIL FIELDS MAKE FARMERS DRILLERS

These oil reserves are reported be larger than those in Saudi Arabia:

John Bartelson may look like an average wheat farmer. He isn't. He's one of North Dakota's new oil barons. Every month, he gets a check for tens of thousands of dollars from a company in Houston called EOG Resources, which drilled two oil wells on his land last year. He says the day his first royalty check arrived was one to remember.

"I smiled to beat hell, and I went to town and had a beer," Bartelson, 65, says. His new wealth springs from the Bakken formation, a sprawling deposit of high-quality crude beneath the durum-wheat fields of North Dakota, Montana and southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Bakken may give the U.S. — the world's biggest importer of oil — a new domestic energy source.

Unlike the tar from Canada's oil sands, Bakken crude needs little refining. Swirl some of it in a Mason jar and it leaves a thin, honey-colored film along the sides. It's light — almost like gasoline — and sweet, meaning it's low in sulfur. Best of all, the Bakken could be huge. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the Bakken might hold 413 billion barrels. If so, it would dwarf Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, the world's biggest field, which has produced about 55 billion barrels.

Of course, any drilling would come to a halt if the democrats learned there were some endangered species of mouse in the area.
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