The Oil Drum

34 comments on A proposal for the windfall profits

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MikeCotton on October 29, 2005 - 1:24am

Regarding ANWR, I read an interview with Matt Simmons about three months ago, and he made a point about ANWR that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Essentially, his point was that the Alaskan Pipeline was engineered to have a minimum flow rate of 500,000 bpd. You have to pump that much in every day to keep the internal pressure high enough to lift the crude over the Brooks Range. Thus, once North Slope production drops below 450-500,000 bpd, we lose all of it in one fell swoop.

Looked at that way, ANWR becomes kind of a no-brainer. Which sucks, becauseI think drilling there is an otherwise shitty idea.

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wkwillis on October 30, 2005 - 3:12am

I believe the technical phrase used was "becomes the world's biggest chapstick".
Maybe we should build methane to gasoline refineries on the North Slope? Construction season is way short up there, so barge them in after building them in the Seattle area? They are just H2S removal and oxygen plants and cooling towers and catalyst plants as far as I know, nothing that can't be barged in.