Oklahoma City oilman Harold Hamm still thinks the number is far too low.

The government now says the world’s fastest-growing oilfield likely holds about 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered oil that can be recovered with today’s technology.

The number is 49 times more than its 1995 forecast of 151 million barrels of recoverable oil. By 2008 the geological survey revised its estimate to 3.7 million barrels.

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc. was one of the first developers in the area and now has a hand in about 20 percent of the wells drilled so far.

Continental Resources in 2010 estimated the field contains 24 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil out of 577 billion barrels of total oil in place.

Last year, the company bumped up its total oil estimate by 56 percent to 903 billion barrels.

Continental Resources and other producers in the area are now producing oil from at four different rock layers and continue to improve drilling techniques in the area.

“The Bakken continues to get bigger, as large fields around the world have always done,” Rick Bott, Continental’s president and chief operating officer, said at the company’s investors day in October.

Domestic crude oil production has increased rapidly over the past five years, reversing half a century of declines.

At the same time, there has been increasing discussion about the country’s renewable energy potential.

To help the public better understand the issues, Oklahoma City communications firm Saxum created a map of the country’s energy production and potential.

“Our US of Energy map is intended to be a conversation starter — an opportunity to begin telling the awesome, positive story of America’s domestic energy revival,” Blake Jackson, vice president of digital at Saxum, said on the company’s blog.

A Saxum team spent five weeks researching and crafting the design before putting everything together.

“What began as a simple graphic showcasing America’s energy riches quickly grew into a two-sided, folded map concept displaying thousands of individual data points,” Jackson said.

The magazine points out that McClendon was forced to sell nearly all his Chesapeake shares in a 2008 margin call.

Chesapeake announced last month that McClendon will leave the company he founded on April 1 with a severance package worth about $47 million.

McClendon is falling off the list as it has been revealed that he’s leveraged against his personally held oil and gas interests in the same way he did with Chesapeake leading up to 2008. Put another way, the guy has mounds of debt,” Forbes reported.

Five Oklahoma families remain on the list this year, led by Continental Resources Inc. CEO Harold Hamm, who ranked No. 90 overall with a net worth of $11.3 billion.

Hamm was followed by Tulsa oilman and Bank of Oklahoma Chairman George Kaiser at $10 billion and ranked No. 109 overall.

Hobby Lobby founder David Green is listed at No. 276 with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion.

Oklahoma retailers Tom and Judy Love tied with Lynn Schusterman — widow of Samson Resources’ Charles Schusterman — to round out the state’s presence on the list at No. 384 with a net worth of $3.5 billion.

SandRidge Energy Inc. CEO Tom Ward on Friday discussed the possibility of a joint venture in the Mississippi Lime in 2014 or 2015.

During a conference call with analysts, Ward said the Oklahoma City energy company is fully funded through 2014, but that the executives already are working to secure financing to support its drilling budget for 2015 and beyond.

The booming Mississippi Lime oil and natural gas field covers much of northern Oklahoma and western Kansas.

Without naming names, Ward said he expected SandRidge to claim a higher price for its joint venture than other parties in the play.

Ward’s former company, Chesapeake Energy Corp., was widely criticized on Wall Street this week when it announced a $1.02 billion Mississippi Lime joint venture that translates into $2,400 an acre, far less than the $7,000 to $8,000 an acre Chesapeake previously said it expected to receive.

Ward did not address Chesapeake specifically, but he said SandRidge is positioned to command one of the highest rates in the Mississippi Lime.

Ward pointed out that SandRidge has spent more than $450 million on pipeline, electrical and saltwater disposal infrastructure in the area over the past two years.

It requires you to have infrastructure, so if other parties don’t have the infrastructure that we have, obviously, that’s worth something,” he said.

Drilling costs also are a factor, Ward said.

We average about $1.1 million per well less than the average of our peers,” Ward said. “We will save over $300 million this year net to SandRidge just from the average of our peers in drilling wells.”

Ultimately, land — and even the oil and natural gas beneath it — is only one small part of the price operators can command for their producing acreage, Ward said.

When you’re selling acreage, you’re really not selling acreage, you’re selling an enterprise,” he said. “You’re selling the ability for a joint venture partner to come and work with us for decades.”

An article in the Calgary Herald on Friday explains how another pipeline conversion project could further help move oil more freely throughout the country.

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. and Houston-based Energy Transfer Partners plan to spend up to $3.4 billion over the next two years to convert an existing natural gas pipeline to transport crude oil from Patoka, Ill., to the St. James hub in Louisiana.

When completed, the line is expected to transport 420,000 to 660,000 barrels of oil per day.

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc. and other producers in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana could be among the biggest beneficiaries from the proposed line.

Continental transports most of its Bakken crude by train to refineries on the east and west coasts.

American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard on Wednesday renewed the industry’s push for the Obama administration to approve plans for the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Keystone XL is an excellent opportunity to achieve the president’s vision for good, well-paying jobs,” Gerard said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. “We call on the president to work with us and approve the Keystone pipeline and put our people back to work for all Americans.”

The pipe is proposed to move oil from Canada, North Dakota and Montana to Cushing on its way to the Gulf Coast.

Also on Wednesday, API released the results of a Harris Interactive survey it commissioned that found that 69 percent of respondents support the plan to build the pipeline, while 83 percent said it would strengthen the country’s energy security and 92 percent said jobs are important when considering the project.

Sean McGarvey, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department at the AFL-CIO, said the project would create 20,000 construction jobs and would support 117,000 new American jobs associated with development of the Canadian oil sands by 2025.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the U.S. now,” McGarvey said. “We have great faith in the president. We hope he makes this decision quickly we can get our people back to work and feeding their families.”

While the API was holding its conference call, Sierra Club President Allison Chin and others were arrested during a protest outside the White House.

“This call for climate action is important enough that, for the first time in our 120-year history, we have suspended the Sierra Club’s long-standing policy that prohibits civil disobedience,” Chin said in a statement Wednesday. “Today is a one-time event to face arrest in order to elevate discussion about a critical issue.”

The Sierra Club, 350.org and other environmental organizations are planning the Forward On Climate Rally, which they are calling “the largest climate-related rally in U.S. history” on Sunday in front of the White House.

The groups are calling for the Obama administration to deny permits required to build the pipeline and to take other steps to

“We’re asking the president to use every resource he has at his disposal — from the bully pulpit to the executive order — to take climate action now,” Chin wrote.

In more Keystone XL-related news, the group that has been trying to stall ongoing construction of the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline on Wednesday released pictures they say show poor welds that would cause the pipe to leak.

Tar Sands Blockade said its members saw light shining into the pipe in Texas in December while they barricaded themselves inside during a protest.

The updated, high-resolution pictures show far more detail of what NASA calls the black marble, or the earth at night. The images are a compilation of satellite photos taken in April and October.

I get geeked out about looking at cities and patterns, including stark contrasts east and west of I-35 on the U.S. map and of how dark places like Africa, Australia and North Korea are on the global map.

I am especially struck by how visible the oil and gas drilling activity is throughout the United States. Offshore production platforms dot the Gulf of Mexico, especially near New Orleans.

The brightest oil patch on the map is the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana. The huge field stands out bright against the relatively dark northern plains.

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc. is the largest player in the field, which is one of the fastest-growing in the world.

Great Scott!

Up to 353 coal-fired power plants in 31 states should be shuttered, the Union of Concerned Scientists said Tuesday.

The environmental group detailed its plan in a report, “Ripe for Retirement: The Case for Closing America’s Costliest Coal Plants.”

The group said the country’s older, less-efficient coal plants should be closed because it will cost more to install scrubbers than to use natural gas- or wind-powered generators instead.

The targeted coal plants produce about 6 percent of the country’s electricity and represent about 59 gigawatts of power generation capacity — or more than 48 times the amount of power needed to travel through time.

Oklahoma’s coal-fired plants were not on the list, even though Tulsa-based Public Service Co. of Oklahoma announced in April that it will close its last two coal units by 2016 and 2026.

Hurricane Sandy is aiming for two of New England’s largest crude oil refineries and an extensive network of oil, gasoline and diesel terminals that service New England.

Two major crude oil refineries in New Jersey have closed as Hurricane Sandy approaches, but it is still unclear how the storm will affect gasoline prices throughout the country.

There are several factors involved that could affect gasoline prices, according to Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com.

While refinery shutdowns often create at least localized price spikes because of reduced supply, Sandy also has reduced gasoline demand by shutting in New York, Washington, Atlantic City and several other of the country’s largest cities.

The bigger risk, DeHaan said, is potential damage from flooding.

“When demand comes back, when schools are open, when NYC is essentially again open for business, will refineries be back online to provide for the demand of motorists? If they aren’t it could mean an impact,” DeHaan wrote on his blog.

GasBuddy’s Gregg Laskoski and told me on Friday that Sandy likely will not have wide-scale affects on gasoline prices.

“That could be a factor if it hits the mid-Atlantic region,” Laskoski said. “A lot of those refineries will probably shut down for safety reasons as the storm approaches. There could be a fairly tight supply within the next 72 hours in parts of the Atlantic, but I don’t think this is going to be something to have a long-term impact on gasoline prices.”

AAA Oklahoma spokesman Chuck Mai said Friday that Oklahoma prices likely will not be affected by the storm.

The threat would be to refineries on the East Coast,” Mai said. “That may impact pump prices in the New England States, but I don’t see that having any ramification here in our neck of the woods.

But there are signs that prices may already be heading back up in Oklahoma City.

Two of lowest-priced stations on Friday already have raised their rates. The Murphy USA station at 104th and South Western had the lowest price in the metro area on Friday at $2.94 a gallon. By Monday morning, the station was selling its fuel at $3.03. Just down the road, at North 12th Street and Santa Fe Avenue in Moore, the 7-Eleven had raised its price to $3.04, up from $2.99 on Friday.