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Raw data: All the oil in ANWR

Published on 31 Comments on Raw data: All the oil in ANWR

With Donald Trump back in office, there's a pretty good chance that he'll open up the ANWR refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. In particular, he'd open up what's known as the 1002 area, a parcel of 1.5 million acres near Prudhoe Bay:

ANWR totals 19 million acres, much of it wilderness, but the 1002 area is outside of the wilderness region. Generally speaking, drilling there wouldn't have a big impact on the wildlife of ANWR.

At the same time, it also wouldn't produce all that much oil:

For a place that isn't really an ecological gem and also wouldn't produce very much oil, it sure has produced more than its share of political strife.

31 thoughts on “Raw data: All the oil in ANWR”

    1. JohnH

      Well, it also symbolizes the Democratic weaknesses that don't exist on inflation, which is tamed, and which supposedly relied on energy protection ,which Biden enabled both in fossil fuels and new technologies to address infrastructure and climate change.

      But it allows Trump to claim credit for it all, with the support of the media, both Fox and the Times/Post axis. We can blame the Dems for their messaging, but if only the right didn't own the messengers.

  3. Displaced Canuck

    There are alot of politics involved in defining wilderness areas and coastal areas are different ecological environments than mountain ones so I'm not sure that it isn't an ecological gem just because it's not defined as a wilderness area. If I remenber correctly it is in a Caribou migration pathway.

    2. Rattus Norvegicus

      In the beginning wilderness areas were just places so remote that there was little opposition to placing them under protected status. In the words of some wag, they only grew "rocks and snow".

  4. FrankM

    They can open it, but they can't make anyone produce there. Oil companies are talking about cutting back production because the world is awash in oil.

    1. Srho

      The epochal lease sale in ANWR attracted pathetically little interest when it happened on... oh, look at that: January 6, 2021.

  5. Justin

    Trumps national security adviser is probably Mike Waltz. He wants to, allegedly, drive the price of oil do low that the Russians (!) and Iranians can’t produce at a profit or something like that.

    “Drive down the price of oil w North American energy and you dry up Tehran & Moscow’s war machines. It’s that simple!”

    I’m not sure if it also puts other oil companies and producers in trouble, but it sure would be fun to seem then try!

    Is Putin is on board? Hard to reconcile it really.

      1. KJK

        I'm sure that OPEC will do nothing if production in the US drives down the price of oil, since they produce about 40% of the oil used and have 80% of the worlds proven oil reserves.

        Had to explain to some MAGA moron a few months ago that the market price for oil is a worldwide price based on worldwide supply and demand. The explanation could not work its way through his Faux News, MAGA, Trumpian metal blocks, so I gave up.

        1. FrankM

          You don't even need OPEC. The entire scheme depends on oil companies drilling and producing oil in some of the most inhospitable and expensive places on earth, in order to drive down the price of oil, so that they can lose money on every one of these new barrels they produce, not to mention reducing the profit margins on all the other oil they produce. It's breathtaking in the sheer idiocy of it.

      2. Srho

        Not to mention the State of Alaska, which would be fiscally harmed by low oil prices far more than any amount of ANWR production years from now.

    2. MindGame

      US oil dominance depends almost entirely upon fracking, which is more expensive to produce than traditional methods and requires a higher price to make it profitable. ND, TX, and PA (among several other states) will not be keen on the idea of far lower petroleum prices.

      1. James B. Shearer

        "US oil dominance depends almost entirely upon fracking, which is more expensive to produce than traditional methods ..."

        Not exactly. In both cases the cost of production varies widely depending on the quality of the source field. In the US the best traditional fields have been pumped and fracking is competitive (or better) than what remains. Which is why most US oil is now produced by fracking.

  6. Vog46

    Yeah, yeah, yeah
    Companies won't drill unless they can sell the product
    As it is most U.S. crude is high sulfur crude. Harder to refine (especially into gasoline. Thats why we use Texas light and North Sea oil for gas - it's easier (read more profitable) for oil companies to refine.

    1. FrankM

      Every refinery has desulfurization capacity, so sulfur is not much of a problem. And no, refineries produce gasoline from every type of crude oil. There isn't nearly enough low sulfur crude to produce all the gasoline we use.

  7. illilillili

    I think you need to better document "not an ecological gem". Yosemite valley is not a wilderness area and is an ecological gem. A million acres of protected land can hold a lot of ecological gems.

    And how can you not mention the Porcupine Caribou?

    For a place that wouldn't produce that much oil, it sure is senseless to drill it all out anyway. I'd vote for having the federal government re-imburse the state of Alaska the revenues they would receive for the oil being drilled. Call it $200 billion paid out over 10 or 20 years... And then permanently leave the oil in the ground.

  9. KJK

    Unrelated, but wanting to see what is going on in Syria, I peaked at CNN's website and was treated with a photo of Orange Il Duce, Macron, and Zelenskyy together, with the most sour puss on that fat orange face. I guess he was just there for ass kissing and groveling (with Macron puckering up). Perhaps that Orange shit stain actually has a conscience (doubtful) and felt bad meeting Zelenskyy knowing he is going to fuck him over, and all of Ukraine, in a few months. Most likely he did not like the attention being off of him for a few minutes and that it reduced the groveling and flattery from Macron he actual flew over to receive.

  10. Anandakos

    You obviously haven't been to the Arctic Slope, Kevin. The tundra there is two or three feet thick and provides the swarming insect life that allows Arctic-nesting neo-tropical birds to raise their chicks to first flight in four to five weeks. It's amazing to walk a few feet on it, and fortunately, because you have to drive five hundred miles up the Haul Road to get there if you're not an oil company employee not many people do.

  11. tango

    The entire issue is more of performance theater than anything else, and both sides look pretty silly.

    Elements of the Left want to protect all the ecology all of the time, even when it does not make sense. I mean, even if there was extensive drilling up there, there would still be plenty of caribou or whatever, just fewer of them, and virtually nobody lives there. If this is not a good place to drill for oil, what is? Getting upset about drilling in places like this makes these elements of the Left look like eco-nutters.

    And on the Right, it's all about owing the Libs or something otherwise "macho." You know, we do not need the extra little oil up there. It makes these elements of the Right look like they are overcompensating for small genitalia or something.

  13. D_Ohrk_E1

    "7.69 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil and 7.04 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of technically recoverable natural gas" -- an excerpt from last month's final SEIS citing info from 2005.

    While technically recoverable does not mean all is recoverable, I think you vastly underestimate how much oil has *not yet* been found. You open up all of ANWR to exploration and more oil *will be* found.

    I'm not a fan of your constant downplaying of the threats. We're already headed to +3.0°C by the end of this century and despite this track we're actually on, at COP29 only the UAE and Britain had increased their NDCs. Not even the US under Biden raised America's NDCs. And here comes Trump. What can we possibly accomplish in stopping climate change? By the time Trump is out of office, we'll either be at or past the mark of +1.5°C, with at least 25 years of overshooting.

    1. Anandakos

      JD and Musk want more kids to be born so that more Libs will burn up in the fires, drown in the Hurricanes and cough themselves to death from the smoke. It's not just Owning the Libs, it's Götterdämmerung.

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