SwiftVets.com

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So now, the price of gasoline is Bush's fault?

On one of those rare occasions when Kerry actually showed up to vote, where was he on ANWR?

And if he, and the other leftists had voted FOR ANWR, what a difference, eh?

So, besides being a confessed war criminal, Kerry's a lying-about-owning-SUV's-and-whining-about-gasoline-prices hypocrite

[sparky]

Even the most optimistic predictions don't show enough oil in ANWR to make a lasting dent in the price of gas.

[waltjones]

I'm curious; do you have data on the high and low estimates from both sides of the fence?
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Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor.

[sparky]

The first thing one must do is distinguish between "oil in place,"
"technically recoverable oil," and "economically recoverable oil."

The first is simply the total volume of oil; the second refers to the amount recoverable using existing technology, and the last refers to the amount that can be profitably recovered, which varies with price.

The USGS upgraded its estimates since recoverability has also improved with new techniques (with lower utilization costs) such as directional drilling, 3-D visualization, production stimulation methods, etc...

The USGS concluded:
At prices less than $13 per barrel, no commercial oil is estimated, but at a price of $30 per barrel, between 3 and 10.4 billion barrels are estimated. Economic analysis includes the costs of finding, developing, producing, and transporting oil to market based on a 12 percent after-tax return on investment, all calculated in constant 1996 dollars.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.pdf

This means that on the low side of "no commercially available oil estimated" -- an unlikely proposition since oil may never get that low in price -- there is $0 in recoverable oil.

At $30 per barrel, there is between around 4 months to 16 months of our current usage. It would take years to complete production in this field so we'd see a small, but steady trickle over a decade.

However, when the Iraqi oil is online, and assuming we have someone useful in control (like Chalabi) we'll have more oil than we know what to do with and it's conceivable that oil would fall to that $13 range (1996 dollars). We can flip our noses at the Saudis and simple economics will protect the ANWR.

[Richard]

Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Updated Assessment

Executive Summary

This Service Report, Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Updated Assessment, was prepared for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at the request of Chairman Frank H. Murkowski in a letter dated March 10, 2000. The request asked the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to develop plausible scenarios for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) supply development consistent with the most recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) resource assessments.

This report contains EIA projections of future daily production rates using recent USGS resource estimates. The Coastal Plain study area includes 1.5 million acres in the ANWR 1002 Area, 92,000 acres of Native Inupiat lands and State of Alaska offshore lands out to the 3-mile limit which are expected to be explored and developed if and when ANWR is developed. (Figure ES1) About 26 percent of the technically recoverable oil resources are in the Native and State lands.

The Coastal Plain region, which comprises approximately 8 percent of the 19 million-acre ANWR, is along the geologic trend that is productive in the Prudhoe Bay area, 60 miles west. This is the largest unexplored, potentially productive onshore basin in the United States. The 1002 area is now closed to exploration and development, although Native and State lands are open.

The USGS made the following estimates in 1998 of technically recoverable oil and natural gas liquids from the ANWR Coastal Plain:

• There is a 95 percent probability (a 19 in 20 chance) that at least 5.7 billion barrels of oil are recoverable.
  
• There is a 5 percent probability (a 1 in 20 chance) that at least 16 billion barrels of oil are recoverable.
  
• The mean (expected value) estimate is 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

By comparison, total 1998 U.S. proved reserves of crude oil were estimated to be 21 billion barrels and the 1993 estimate of undiscovered technically recoverable oil for the onshore lower 48 States (that would come from tens of thousands of small fields) was about 23 billion barrels.

EIA postulated yearly development rates of the resources without specifying the effect of various levels of oil prices and technology advances, and then projected daily production rates based on the USGS estimates, as follows:

• Low and high ANWR yearly development rates ranging from 250 to 800 million barrels per year are postulated for each of the three USGS estimates, forming 6 cases.
  
• Projected ANWR peak production rates range from 650,000 to 1.9 million barrels per day across the 6 cases.
  
• For the mean resource case (10.3 billion barrels technically recoverable), ANWR peak production rates range from 1.0 to 1.35 million barrels per day.
  
• Even with nearby production infrastructure, 7 to 12 years would be needed for lease sales, permitting and environmental reviews after approval for leasing. It is projected that initial ANWR production could occur around 2010 if leasing approval occurred within the next few years.
  
• The imported refiner acquisition cost in 2020 is projected in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2000 reference case at $22.04 (1998 dollars). At this price, the potential ANWR oil recovered would have a value between $125 and $350 billion (in 1998 dollars.)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html


Richard
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