Oily Tales III
Another fallacious argument you hear a lot coming from the right wing is:
3) We need to drill in ANWR and expand drilling leases to oil companies
In case you're not familiar with ANWR, it stands for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - it's a federally protected reserve that would require congressional approval for drilling to begin. A May 2008 assessment by the EIA estimated potential cumulative production of the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be a maximum of 4.3 billion barrels from 2018 to 2030. This estimate is a best case scenario of technically recoverable oil during the area's primary production years if legislation were passed in 2008 to allow drilling. Anytime you hear a politician or pundit mention ANWR, your mind should immediately think, instead, of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA).
NPRA is an area of 22.5 million acres where existing Alaskan production mainly originates from now. According to the Department of the Interior, “The US Geological Survey issued a new report in 2002 that significantly revised hydrocarbon estimates upwards. The agency now estimates that the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska has between 5.9 to 13.2 billion barrels of technically-recoverable oil on the federal lands in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska with a mean estimate of 9.3 billion barrels. And now that prices exceed $35 per barrel, NPRA and ANWR 1002 would have nearly equal volumes of economically recoverable oil.
Unlike ANWR, oil companies hold massive leases to drill in the Nat'l Petroleum Reserve but they have yet to drill in any significant amount. Now, why, you ask, would that be? And why would they be clamouring to tap into ANWR if they haven't even begun to tap into NPRA?
Because oil companies want to control oil reserves more than drill for oil where there are proven reserves. Their strategy right now is to accumulate as many favorable leases as possible under the current Administration, with no minimum pumping requirments and very lengthy contract terms. That's what both ANWR and this offshore drilling issue is all about.
If you're interested in following the oil exploration debate on a regular basis, I highly recommend checking in on this page from time to time: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/oil/ In my next post on this subject, I'll examine the case for peak oil.
