Bakken oil fields mark billionth barrel of oil

April 30, 2014

oil-train-railBISMARCK, N.D. – Oil drillers targeting the rich Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota and eastern Montana have produced 1 billion barrels of crude, data from the two states show.

Drillers first targeted the Bakken in Montana in 2000 and moved into North Dakota about five years later using advanced horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques to recover oil trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface.

Read the complete Associated Press story at Yahoo News.