BISMARCK, N.D. - A crude-bearing cache known as the Birdbear, beneath North Dakota’s already booming oil patch, can be tapped using new technology that would expand horizontal drilling to parts of the state that have never seen it, geologists believe.

The Birdbear is a thin oil formation , only a few feet , locked within muddy limestone and dolomite more than 2 miles underground, immediately beneath the rich Bakken shale and Three Forks-Sanish formations in North Dakota, said Julie LeFever, a geologist with the state Geological Survey in Grand Forks.

“If the Bakken and Three Forks don’t work out, here’s another target,” LeFever said.

Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. already has about 50 horizontal wells aimed at the Birdbear in Billings and Golden Valley counties in southwestern North Dakota, said John Kelso, a company spokesman. The wells there produce up to 400 barrels daily, compared with the company’s Bakken or Three Forks wells that can top 2,000 barrels daily, he said.

Kelso called the Birdbear an important but tertiary target for his company, which has more than 600,000 acres leased for oil exploration in North Dakota.

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