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The North Slope of Alaska is an important oil producing region of the world, with the large Prudhoe Bay area ranking in as the biggest oil reserve in the continental US, and the 7th largest in the world. A brief history of the Alaska oil and the potential for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The previously untouched areas of the Arctic are more economically attractive than ever. Exploitation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is being viewed as a short-term panacea for the current oil prices by some short-sighted politicians to counter sky-rocketing oil prices. This is despite the price increases being mostly due to market speculation rather than supply shortages. One area specifically, the 1002 (“ten zero two”) region of the ANWR, is firmly in the sights of some US legislators and one incredibly old presidential candidate.
As a slight digression before I get into the main topic of this article, I always find it interesting to note that the greatest oil producing areas in the Arctic could have been exclusively Russian, if not for the sale of Alaska to the United States by Imperial Russia in 1867. The Alaskan purchase was completed on April 9, 1867 for the paltry price of $7.2 million (~$95 billion in 2006 money) (Wikipedia). The purchase occurred well before the height of the oil age and one can only imagine how different the geopolitical landscape would have been with the USSR having such a large stake in North American land and mineral reserves.
History of Alaskan Oil Exploration
The first major drilling and exploration activity occurred post-world war II with the U.S navy drilling 37 test wells and 45 shallow core holes. This ultimately resulted in the drill testing of 18 different structures in a region defined as the Naval petroleum Reserve, on the western third of the Alaska North Slope (Morgride and Smith 1972). Further Naval drilling resulted in the discovery of small South Barrow and Gubik gas fields and the Umiat Oil field in the early 50s. Following this period of limited naval test drilling, the exploration of the northern slope was slow, but picked up following the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay field in 1967.
Current Alaskan Oil Exploitation and 1002
The Google Earth KML for Alaska’s oil wells the ANWR and the 1002 (Fig. 1) area can be found here.
The Prudhoe Bay Field is easily identifiable in Fig. 1. It’s the region with the highest clustering of registered wells in northern Alaska and is ranked seventh largest in the world and the most sizeable petroleum reserve on the North American continent. It is estimated to have ~10 billion barrels of recoverable oil and ~26 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. All the reservoirs are Lower Cretaceous in age and sealed by a formation of marine shale.
The ANWR (Fig. 2 and the green patch in Fig. 1) is an area of Alaska set aside as a wildlife reserve for the ecosystems present in the Alaskan tundra. It was established in 1960 via the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act (USGS 1998). Due to the enormous oilfields present in the adjacent geology, a coastal area was set aside in section 1002 of the act (hence the catchy name of the area), with the rights to defer management of the area to the U.S. Government should it see fit to open the area up to exploitation. The 1002 is a 1.5 million acre plot of land with potentially massive petroleum resources; a 1998 USGS assessment stated that the total potential mean recoverable oil from ANWR was on the order of 10.4 billion barrels (USGS 1998, Houseknecht and Bird 2002). As is evident from Fig. 1, the area of oil producing wells stops on the boundary of the ANWR, and it should be obvious that geology does not follow human boundaries.
An assessment by Sherwood et al. (2001), suggested that at only ~US$30 per barrel, a recoverable quantity of 9.4 billion barrels of oil would be required in order to make an economical mining operation. I previously mentioned that there is a predicted mean undeveloped resource of ~10 billion barrels in the 1002 area. This mean comes from a lower limit of 5.7 billion barrels and an upper limit of 16 billion barrels. Going on the price of a barrel of crude oil as of the time of writing (~US$135 per barrel), even the lowest certainty of 5.7 billion barrels should make the most conservative oil executive quiver in delight.
In related posts, Brian at Clastic Detritus posted and in-depth review of the outer-continental-shelf drilling that’s also part of this political hubbub. It’s well worth a read.
References
Morgridge, D.L. and Smith, W.B., Jr., 1972, Geology and Discovery of Prudhoe Bay Field, Eastern Arctic Slope, Alaska, in King, R.E., editor, Stratigraphic Oil and Gas Fields; American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir No. 16, p. 489 – 501.
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Chris, this is a great summary about ANWR, it’s location and history. Very pertinent for all the recent talk about what to do about oil prices.
It’s good to keep in mind when talking about oil exploration in ANWR, that exploration is the first step and production is not guaranteed – despite estimates made by any governmental agency or even any petroleum companies. Drilling would be required to see if there is actually any oil, or recoverable oil, or economical oil there at all.
Chris, great summary … hmmm, 10 billion barrels? Although it’s enough for the development to be economic, as you point out, it would give the U.S. about 1.4 “oil-years” worth of resource (i.e., 20 million bbls/day consumption rate).
Well, that sure doesn’t seem like much, does it! The gas might heat Alaska for a while, but they have sources a little closer to Anchorage – though I don’t know the life expectancy on those.
Yeah, it’s all a little pie-in-the-sky. There’ll be no real benefit to anyone from drilling this area. They’ll sink billions into exploration and extraction, money which could be used to break the addiction.
But then again, economics rarely fall into line with my environmental idealisms.
(By the way, I’ve edited the podclast episode 6 and I’ll be posting it tonight. Brian, jess and I talk about this topic at length)
Actually, there is some real talk about a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope (Prudhoe Bay, etc.) to somewhere in north-central BC where gas pipelines already exist, and a Canadian company has passed the first hurdle that Alaska put in place in order to build that pipeline (right now, it’s an idea – but Alaska has legislated construction specifications that have to be met before a pipeline can be built, and one company has passed those). If a pipeline is built, Chicago may well get its heat from Alaskan oil fields.
Another thing that isn’t considered in these how-long-will-the-oil-last calculations is that no one will use the ANWR oil (or any one particular source of oil) – if any is found – as the only source of oil, just like the oil that has been in production from Prudhoe Bay for decades now is not a sole source of oil for the US or anyone else. If Prudhoe’s original 25 billion barrels of oil had been the only oil the US was using, it would have been gone in 2-3 years, and a pipeline for that would have, therefore, never have been built.
I think these barrels-per-year estimates for any given oil lease, oil field, or larger-than field-size oil source (like the OCS in general) are misleading or spurious. That is, with that kind of thinking, no oil field or oil source would ever be put into production, anywhere. Barrels-per-year estimates are not a good argument against putting an area into production.
Also, please continue to remember that resource estimates are just that, estimates. And, a resource is not the same as a reserve. Calculations of actual, real, in-the-ground reserves cannot be made without drilling. There is very little real geological knowledge about the ANWR 1002 lands.
I will look into what I can post from a former MMS source about Alaska, OCS, and MMS in general – but it might a couple weeks before I can get the information together.
Silver Fox says: “I think these barrels-per-year estimates … are misleading or spurious.”
It’s simply another way to visualize the amount … I don’t claim that’s how long it will last. These numbers are so large, that it’s difficult for us to comprehend. The analogy is light-years … we probably won’t ever travel at light speed, but it’s a way to visualize the vast distance.
That’s all.
Silver Fox says: “Barrels-per-year estimates are not a good argument against putting an area into production.”
Fair enough.
Again … I’m not recommending this be used to actually evaluate the economic feasibility. The OCS and ANWR are so politicized that I just think it’s important for a general public to understand in as many ways they can these volumes. Politicians and pro-drilling advocates are using phrases like “vast amounts”, “a lot”, or “significant resources” as an argument for putting the area into production. Is that not misleading and spurious?
Okay, maybe my statement was a little over-phrased? It’s just that I got to thinking about 10 to 25 billion barrels of oil not seeming like an amount worth looking at because it would only last 1 to 3 years — if can I start thinking that a Prudhoe-sized field is small enough to dismiss, so can other people.
I think you’re right that terms like “a lot” or “significant” don’t mean a thing – “vast amounts” in particular! Definitely political and non-scientific.
There is a lot more oil and natural gas in Alaska’s North slope. In 1976, the largest pool of oil in the world was discovered on gull island, Alaska, just 5 miles north of the docks at Prudhoe Bay. Three test wells were drilled and each were huge gushers, more than Saudi wells. Our govt. told the CEO’s of Atlantic Richfield to keep their mouths shut, and that they had classified the oil discovery. Who were these politicians and bureaucrats and why would they want to keep this huge energy find secret? Henry Kissinger was one of the key politicians in the late 70’s to secretly cause the USA to become captive to the foreign oil producers. They new that light sweet crude set the price of oil, he went to Nigeria, which was one of the few producers and made a deal. He said that if Nigeria would denominate their oil in dollars, put a percentage of their profits in the big New York banks, and buy some of the USA debt, caused by the USA buying this foreign oil and not using our own oil, the USA would not use the oil that they have in large amounts. Who did Kissinger represent? One can check out who the largest buyers of our debt is, it is 1st. Japan, 2nd China 3rd Great Britain, and 4th the foreign oil producers. Who would want to cause Americans to pay billions of dollars more than they should? Some entity that wants a world govt.,what entity could that be? The trillion dollar rich rothchilds,the leadership of zionism, or the leadership of the vatican, or maybe all three together. Just type on google the oil on gull island, Alaska, you will get several hits telling about the huge oil and natural gas find there.
Great history and comparison made. If USA didn’t buy Alaska from Russia.
NEWS Release
This week Arctic Power for ANWR took a delegation up to the North Slope and than on to the view the ANWR plain. They return Thursday July 17,. National Press Conference. Live Coverage of the event, with interviews. Archived at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/syrin
Did you really write that the Russians sold Alaska for a “poultry price”.
I think you meant “paltry”
Please…..
Whoops. That looked stupid. Thanks for pointing that out (fixed).
I have been studying this topic in Geography and apparently there are 60 billion barrels worth of oil. The drillers will be killing all the animals in that area and the surrounding area. All the water and the fish in that area also will be contaminated. However, only 2,000 acres out of 19 million (Of the reserve) could be affected. The reserve is the only last safe place for Polar Bears and the last place they cannot be hunted. VOTE FOR THE SAFETY AND RESERVE OF ENDANGERED ANIMALS!!!!!!!!
Even the ‘pro oil’ people say that there’s ‘only enough oil in 1002 to fulfill the US needs for about a year and a half’…
I think the only answer is to invest all those billions of dollars in alternative energy sources.
The sun and wind aren’t doing anywhere right away.
Leave the remaining pristine wilderness areas alone.
A friend of mine used to fly a supply helicopter on the North Slope. He said that you can STILL SEE the tracks made by the first tractors that they took up their to drill the first exploration wells in the 60’s, from the air!
This is not an ecosystem that recovers quickly, folks.