11 JULY 2025 WorldWide Drilling Resource® USGS Identifies Potential for Undiscovered Resources Adapted from Information by the U.S. Geological Survey According to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), there are potentially undiscovered gas and oil formations under Wyoming and in parts of southern Montana, western South Dakota, and Nebraska. The technically recoverable resources consist of approximately 47 million barrels of oil and 876 billion cubic feet of gas. Exploration of the upper Paleozoic reservoirs of the Wind River, Bighorn, and Powder River basins began in the 1920s. Since then, it has produced 4 billion barrels of oil, which is about the amount of oil the U.S. currently consumes in six months. “USGS energy assessments typically focus on undiscovered resources - areas where science tells us there may be a resource that industry hasn’t discovered yet. In this case, after a century of production, the upper Paleozoic reservoirs of the Wind River, Bighorn, and Powder River basins have little remaining undiscovered oil,” said Sarah Ryker, Acting Director of the USGS. Gas and oil assessments by the USGS began 50 years ago following an oil embargo against the U.S. The situation revealed the need to understand the circumstances, distribution, and potential volumes of undiscovered resources in the country. The embargo also led to a mandate for the USGS to use geologic science and data to assess undiscovered gas and oil resources to help meet the nation’s needs. Today, the work of identifying new resources for domestic production, as well as international resources affecting market conditions, continues. In fact, it has become an important part of the USGS mission to provide actionable insight to U.S. leaders, other federal agencies, industry, and the public. As gas and oil technology changed over the years, so has the range of assessments. In 1995, the USGS began researching unconventional, technically recoverable resources. “The shift to horizontal drilling with [hydraulic fracturing] has revolutionized oil production, and we’ve changed with it,” said Christopher Schenk, a USGS Geologist, noting the Bakken Shale deposit in North Dakota had a few hundred vertical wells when the USGS first assessed the area, and has since grown to tens of thousands of wells today. G&O
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