How much oil in Alaska? About 5 percent of U.S. use for a few years.

[Thom Little]

As a Christmas week fight rages in Congress over whether to allow drilling along the narrow coastal strip of tundra 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, both sides are trying to use the refuge's oil estimates - as vague as they may be - to their advantage. Some of the rhetoric has little bearing on reality.

A drilling go-ahead was approved early Monday by the House, after it was included in a must-pass defense bill. But the issue remains uncertain in the Senate, where the defense measure is subject to a potential filibuster. Drilling supporters still are believed to fall short the 60 votes needed to overcome such a tactic.

"There is considerable uncertainty regarding both the size and quality of the oil resources that exist" in the refuge, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration, the government agency that tracks energy statistics.

.......

At peak production, about 1 million barrels a day - roughly 5 percent of current U.S. daily consumption - would flow down the Alaska pipeline from the refuge, but that would not be a sustained amount. Assessments by both the Energy Department and the Geological Survey suggest peak flow probably would be limited to three to five years, depending on the amount of oil found, with lesser amounts being pumped longer.

"What is reasonable to say is that (the Alaska refuge) could represent between 5 and 10 percent of our national production for a period of 20 to 30 years," says Houseknecht, the government geologist. Domestic oil production averaged 8.6 million barrels a day in 2004.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ARCTIC_OIL_1ST_LD_WRITETHRU_AKOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-19-11-38-57

[rodeodance]

1. there is no quarantee the oil will go to the US. I read it goes to Japan

but I do not know if this is true (going to Japan).

[tulsakatz]

2. I heard that too..........

....even if they find any oil in Alaska, it will most likely go to Asia since it is geographically closer to Alaska than the continental US.

[rodeodance]

3. The US gov can not tell businesses where to sell any oil they find.

[rman]

4. So what?

Who's saying the govt tells corporations where to sell the oil?
The oil corporations might just want to sell oil to Japan.

[NMDemDist2]

6. i don't think that's why (closer to asia) I read it's because it's not

"light sweet crude" that our refineries can handle. the ANWR oil has much more sulfur and only the Asian refineries can handle it

[izzie]

5. Look into where the pipe came from.

US steel did not roll that pipe. 1 Million used to be pumped out from fields every day, but I think that they have been emptied some what Is it true that the oil Co. never paid for the oil spill? I did not know that.