Yes. Thanks Rembrandt for a devastating critique (if I can echo Segeltamp's sentiments).

This is the most ridiculous study I have seen yet, and the USGS in particular has long history of these ridiculous studies, starting from the infamous geologist Zapp through the incompetent duo of Attanasi & Root. So this appears to be a bunch of lapdogs who took USGS data w/o any kind of sanity check applied.

The parts that I find really bizarre is their assertion that they make that these provinces have not yet been evaluated, and they have popped up like virgin areas. No way that this could happen in a reality-based universe -- you really have to expect that a continuum of search has occurred throughout the years. No way can these areas remain "bottled-up" for years and then suddenly someone decides to start exploring them. And these guys then make the assertion that a cornucopia of oil awaits? Do they really believe that the USGS knows how much exploration that private companies have done on these areas prior to their analysis? And do they think corporations will necessarily release this data?

The other part is their analysis based on reservoir sizes. The problem with reservoir size distributions is that there is no "top" so-to-speak for an effective URR solely based on aggregating sizes. How many reservoirs are they actually going to find? This has to factor into a sum total based on volumetric considerations. Showing reservoir sizes is a strawman as far as I can tell.

If that article ever appeared on TOD directly, it would get ripped to shreds. As someone else said, so much for quality peer review.