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BakkenShale.com is operated and managed by KED Interests, LLC, Houston TX. Information on this site is curated by industry professionals with over 30 years experience in oil and gas production, investing, and consulting. This site exists as an education and information source for all stakeholders having an interest in the Bakken Shale play. Learn, enjoy and tell your friends. The Bakken Shale ranks as one of the largest oil developments in the U.S. in the past 40 years. The play has single-handedly driven North Dakota’s oil production to levels four times higher than previous peaks in the 1980s. As of 2012, ND is second to Texas in terms of oil production and boasts the lowest unemployment rate in the country at ~3%. The Bakken Shale Play is located in Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota, as well as parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the Williston Basin. Oil was initially discovered in the Bakken play in 1951, but was not commercial on a large scale until the past ten years. The advent of modern horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing helps make Bakken oil production economic. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the Bakken Shale Formation could yield 4.3 billion barrels of oil and estimates from Continental Resources stretch as high as 40 billion barrels. The name “Bakken” originates from a North Dakota farmer, Henry Bakken, who owned the land where the first well encountered the Bakken formation.