North America has over 13, 000 billion barrels of hydrocarbon resources in oil-equivalent terms.

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Green aficionados are familiar with the statistic that the sun bathes the Earth in trillions of barrels of energy (in oil equivalent terms), and less familiar with the fact that total known hydrocarbon resources are also countable in the trillions of barrels (from the oil-sands and ultra-deep-water sub-salt fields, to methane hydrates and coal, not to mention shale gas).

FORBES: Steve Forbes Is Wrong

Securing trade routes through Afghanistan to Central Asia and its vast hydrocarbon and mineral resources will lead foreigners to try to do business with the Taliban.

ECONOMIST: The Taliban

Think about what this advancement has meant just in terms of access to the resources: When drilling into a hydrocarbon bearing formation 100 feet thick, vertical drilling would allow an operator to contact 100 feet of rock, which would limit your potential recovery to whatever oil or gas would flow into that length of pipe.

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A. hydrocarbon resource base is some 700 percent greater than all the resources in the Middle East.

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It will help it get Arctic resources to market faster and also, as the NSR becomes increasingly viable, diversify its hydrocarbon-addicted economy.

ECONOMIST: The melting north | The