ANWR oil = 1 day California Consumption

[aztc]

For Immediate Release: December 21, 2005
Media Contact: Rob Schlichting - 916-654-4989

California gasoline production nears 1 million barrels a day


Sacramento - Production of reformulated gasoline for use in California
improved slightly -- 0.9 percent -- from the previous week but was 4.4
percent less than at this time last year, according to the Weekly Fuels
Watch Report issued today by the California Energy Commission.

Production of reformulated gasoline in California refineries averaged
997,571 barrels a day for the week ending December 16, 2005. Inventories
of reformulated gasoline are down 4.3 percent when compared to the
previous week and are 12.7 percent below last year's levels.

Diesel production and diesel inventories are at levels well above any
reached in the past five years. Diesel production rose 4.1 percent from
the previous week and was 9.7 percent better than at this time last year.
Inventories of CARB diesel rose by 7.5 percent over the week and were up
21.1 percent from this time last year.

The entire Weekly Fuels Watch Report can be seen on the Energy
Commission's Web site at

http://www.energy.ca.gov/database/fore

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[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. do you have the ANWR #'s handy?

great stuff. It will come in very handy during freeper confrontations.

;)

[Bru]

4. ANWR #'s

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm - Here is the USGS survey which is the primary source for media citation's of ANWR's reserves.

To summarize:

No one knows exactly how much oil is in ANWR. The USGS survey uses estimates from rock samples.

The mean estimate (50% likelihood) for oil reserves in ALL of ANWR is 10.4 billion barrels.

The mean estimate for oil reserves in the "1002 Area" (the coastal area where drilling would occur) is 7.7 billion barrels.

The USGS is almost completely sure (95% estimate) that the 1002 Area has at least 4.3 billion barrels of oil. For any reserve estimates above that the likelihood goes down.

The 7.7 billion mean Area 1002 estimate refers to "technically recoverable" oil. When economics is taken to account (even given the high price of oil today), this estimate decreases slightly.

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Conservative talking points like to stress the 10.4 billion figure and sometimes the 16 billion figure, which is the 5% (highly unlikely) estimate for the entire ANWR area (not the part where drilling would occur). Don't believe them. They are only doing this because their progenitors have no legitimate argument for drilling.

I'm not sure what the consumption level of California is, but, as I've pointed out in my blog (and many others have pointed out), it is a fallacy to analyze ANWR's oil capability vis a vis only one state, rather than the entire country.

[Spinzonner]

2. And don't think that we're not going to take every last drop of it

[Dogmudgeon]

5. That depends if we can get it

With the advancing permafrost meltdown, it may be prohibitively expensive to drill the ANWR for several years after it is opened. Many Peak Oil experts have recommended keeping the oil there as a kind of a reserve stock for the possible occurrence of an unexpected major shortfall that could wreak economic destruction. In other words, not touching it unless/until a major crisis (not just some uncomfortably high gasoline prices) were to happen.

We need to get serious about developing energy alternatives, nuclear and/or non-nuclear. Another year has come and gone, and little has been done beyond a few books being published. That's not to say that nothing has been done, but it's far less than we ought to be doing.

--p!

[Massacure]

3. Production and consumption are not interchangable.

Just because California produces 1 million barrels a day, doesn't mean they use it. They may ship it off to other states.