Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Responding to ObL

re: Responding to ObL

Regarding ANWR:
"The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that if the green light is given it would take 7 to 12 years to sell leases, do permitting, environmental reviews, etc. and that initial production could start in 2010 at the earliest. Assuming an optimistic scenario in which the mean expected technically recoverable oil in the entire coastal plain (not just the 1002 area) - 10.3 billion barrels - could be completely recovered (i.e. ignoring market pricing) the EIA estimates production of 600 million barrels a year. In comparison, US daily consumption is 18.5 million barrels a day, or 6,752 million barrels a year. Thus in this scenario ANWR, once on tap, would provide less than 9% of US annual usage (given that usage is trending upward..). Assuming a less positive scenario, at a market price of $24/barrel the mean estimated commercially recoverable oil is 5.2 billion barrels, and since the oil is in multiple plays rather than one large play the costs of exploting the oil will be higher.

In conclusion, the amount of economically recoverable oil reserves in the ANWR, even if the numbers pan out exactly as estimated by the USGS, is dependent on the market price of crude. The graph on the right shows the US cost of a barrel of oil from 1970 to the present. This together with the estimates above provide an informed basis upon which to determine the possible recoverable oil from the 1002 area and make a decision regarding the desirability of drilling in the ANWR. "
[the graph shown goes up to 2002 and show crude prices steeply dipping & the then low cost of crude seems to be used as minor argument against using ANWZ]
http://www.sibelle.info/oped15.htm

Anyways main point is 600 million barrels a year And compare to your numbers:
Importation of Middle Eastern oil by company:
Shell............................. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco..................... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil................. 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway.............. 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco..............................62,231,000 barrels

It's slightly less than the total. Now recall the argument about how little ANWZ would add to our crude oil supply. This cuts both ways. It's fair to say the middle east oil or ANWR adds little to our crude oil supply.
The facts most people are missing are that the US produces A LOT of oil- declining yes, but stilll a lot of oil and for a long time into the future.
Also missing is dependance on total quanitity of oil "available" is price dependent.
When have a situation where HUGE amounts oil is just gushing out of the ground- as in the Middle east; this drives the cost of crude oil down on global market. Therefore exploration costs and infrastructure aren't justified with lower crude oil prices. Add into this mix all the environmental laws and liabilities, and it is NO wonder America's reserves are declining.
If crude oil do not drop below $40 a barrel by time we are extracting oil from ANWZ, then ANWZ will probably exceed the amount of oil we get from the Middle east [meaning we won't import as much from Middle East nor from the other oil supplier such Canada, Mexico, etc].

I can see a future where we could have huge surplus of oil, but I still think we need to open the space frontier as quickly as possible and in this regard we are still behind the curve.

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