The Oil Drum

The government eventually opened up the Naval Petroleum Reserve at Tea Pot Dome, Wyoming for development. The remaining blocks containing potential hydrocarbons offshore and in the Rocky Mtns. might be offered in the future, block by block, so as to give the American people access to hydrocarbons and better prices for the lands the oil companies who might bid to lease from the Federal government and might pay production royalties for, in addition to creating jobs, and payroll taxes. It would not be harmful to open some lands, nor in the public's interest to flood the market with leases up for bid all at once as this wouold cause the public to lose fair market value for mineral leases within its public lands.

Ah, but significant to whom? Perhaps the company with access to that oil, but that is what the motivation here is (beyond the political pandering).

Note the relative amounts of "undiscovered" oil and gas which will be "unleashed" by removing restrictions:

And, as reported by Grist

Amy Myers Jaffe, energy studies fellow at the James Baker Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, testified that the country needs to diversify its fuel sources, noting that in the '70s, the United States stopped relying on oil for electricity and home heating. The same needs to be done for automobiles, she said, which use the bulk of the oil consumed in the country today. And in order to diversify, companies are going to have to invest in research and development, she said, citing a report that found that the five largest oil companies spend very little on R&D each year -- less than half of what General Motors or Microsoft does, she said.

Myers Jaffe also rebutted the folks who are lobbying for the government to allow oil and gas drilling in new offshore areas and places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, noting that oil companies aren't spending money on exploration in the places they're already allowed to drill.

"Now, imagine in your mind that instead of reversing those very very steep declines, the declines continue. There is a pretty good reason to think that the declines will continue as there are no particular projects going on that would reverse the declines. You will pretty clearly see that in both the cases of natural gas and crude, by the time the outer shelf production comes online, it is *not* a 7% difference, it's a *100%* difference. Simply put, it'll be the only oil and natural gas we make. I'd call that pretty bleeding significant."

Which is why the focus should not be on drilling at all. But on producing a meaningful supply of alternative energies by 2030.

The models which see little price difference from opening up all of Alaska and offshore to drilling are assuming a larger amount of oil from other sources than will be available.

First, we have the decline in oil production which will be far along by 2020.

Then we have the far bigger decline in net exports.

Combine those two and ANWR and US offshore drilling become a far larger fraction of what we'll have available in 2020-2030.

I have to disagree that 250kbbl/day for 12 years would be insignificant. That EIA graph is pure fantasy. It would require California and the Eastern GOM just to flatten the curve. The rise shown just isn't going to happen. Somebody upthread claimed the new areas could double offshore production in 2030. I thinks that's a pessimistic take on existing areas, but I can't see the new areas being less than 25 or 30% by then. Which we flippin' need to eg run the diesel worktrains for the electrification projects.

No chance for that woman to get elected. She just doesn’t have the requisite imbecility gene that allows one to tell the voters what they want to hear while ignoring the consequences. To bad.

Following that link you had I found this:

oil companies have millions of acres of land with supposed oil deposits and untapped wells already under their control, but they're not rushing to drill or explore them. Why? Because tracts that show up as "untapped oil reserves" are more profitable if they remain untapped. They inflate the stock price, the result of which goes directly into the execs' wallets. And the corporations use them as an asset without having to actually see whether or not there is any oil in the deposits.

Is this true? Is this sort of data listed somewhere publicaly, so I just go look at it?

I'm starting to get the feeling that it won't be too much longer before MS starts detailing a lot of what you guys and gals talk about here. Which is fine by me.

Regards, Matt B
Frustrated fence-sitter (though, think now there's a foot in the PO boat).

The true solution to our energy problems starts with conservation efforts, and investment in alternative and sustainable energy sources, which will create new American industries and jobs and jumpstart the sluggish economy."

Does anyone else believe we can find an alternative that doesn't already exist that will fill the void left by declining oil production?? I don't believe this statmement on it face value..

Link your article correctly...

Proven reserves stand at about 25 billion barrels in the USA. Anything else is pure speculation. Even ANWR.

More drilling is not the answer. We all know that...because what happens when we drilled everywhere in 50 years???

The Investor's Business Daily? Get real.

Institute for Energy Research???? Independent????

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research

The Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organisation, advocates positions on environmental issues which happen to suit the energy industry: climate change denial, claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless, and the deregulation of utilities.

It is a member of the Sustainable Development Network. The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron.

and

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=115

IER analyzes public policy related to oil, gas, coal, and electricity. According to IER's mission statement, it "articulates free-market positions that respect private property rights and promote efficient outcomes for energy consumers and producers."

IER President Robert Bradley is a Cato Institute scholar and received the 2002 Julian Simon Award from CEI. One of Bradley's areas of concentration is "global warming alarmism." IER does not publish reports, but sells publications Bradley has written for other organizations, such as the Cato Institute. These publications include "Climate Alarmism Reconsidered" (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003) and "Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not 'Green'" (Cato, 1997).

FUNDING

Institute for Energy Research has received $212,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Finally, do you think that low oil prices from the mid-80's through the 90s had absolutely nothing to do with low exploration efforts?

Looking through the EIA's Offshore Development Policy in the United States I don't see anything about restriction on exploration, unless perhaps it violated the clause in the Endangered Species Act concerning "harassment." As much as the companies spend to lease these blocks, you'd figure they'd have some freedom in their actions:

MMS collects about $6 billion dollars on average in revenue each year from the individuals and companies that lease offshore lands for natural gas and oil development.

According to your link on EIA projections, the ANWR will contribute about 1 million barrels per day to US production after 2018, but the real surprise is for the onshore production.

The EIA says that by 2030 onshore production will remain almost the same as today due to use of CO2 injection in old fields. This is very much wishful thinking as many older fields may not have the proper strata for CO2 to work, and secondly what about the huge infrastructure and operational cost of getting this CO2 gas to the proper fields? Always a rosy picture from the EIA!

Also, many people here have not previously thought much of EIA projections when the numbers disagreed with the declining scenarios.

That's the best part of this. The study is from the eternal optimists, the bunch who projected future production based on what the demand was predicted to be -- and who uses CERA data for the estimates for other countries.