Senator Murkowski Encouraged by New Oil and Gas Estimates of Central North Slope

SENATOR MURKOWSKI ENCOURAGED BY NEW OIL AND GAS ESTIMATES OF CENTRAL NORTH SLOPE

-Senator Lisa Murkowski said today she is extremely pleased by the new U.S. Geological Survey assessment of undiscovered oil and natural gas resources in the area between NPRA and ANWR.

The assessment concludes that there are 4.0 billion barrels of oil, 37.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 478 million barrels of natural gas liquids that are undiscovered and technically recoverable in the central North Slope. The assessment released today covers both state-owned and federal lands and does not include the existing 35 trillion cubic feet of known gas reserves of the Greater Prudhoe Bay field. It is the first formal assessment of the central North Slope conducted by the USGS.

"The assessment of the foothills south of Prudhoe Bay simply reinforces how important it is for construction to proceed quickly on a natural gas pipeline project to move Alaska's huge reserves of natural gas to market," Senator Murkowski said. "The new assessment is especially important since it reinforces the belief that there will be enough gas close to the pipeline to make a natural gas pipeline project economically viable, not for just 20 years but for 40 years or more.

"The assessment also is important since it furthers the likelihood that we have enough gas, when you consider likely reserves in both the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and on the Arctic coastal plain of the North Slope, to fuel both a pipeline to the Midwest and a pipeline to tidewater, so Alaska can also sell its gas to West Coast markets. Admittedly a government estimate, in the absence of actual exploration, is not proof that the gas is there, but the fact that the government is now predicting that we have an even chance of finding more than 154 trillion cubic feet of gas on the North Slope (37.5 TCF from the Central North Slope, 73 TCF from NPRA, 9 TCF from ANWR, 35 TCF of known reserves in the Greater Prudhoe Bay field) should send a powerful message that this is the right time to begin construction of a pipeline to bring that gas to market."

Senator Murkowski added that the estimate that the uplands contain 4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil is also good news, since it should induce new exploration in the foothills that could further the life of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, especially if a small portion of the Arctic coastal plain is also opened to oil and gas development later this year.

"A 4 billion barrel estimate combined with the 10.6 billion barrels of oil likely to be produced from ANWR, will be beneficial for a nation that likely will become nearly 70 percent dependent on foreign oil over the next two decades unless sizeable amounts of domestic oil are discovered and produced. We need every barrel and the prediction that the North Slope has an even chance of producing 25 billion barrels of new oil, plus an additional 7 billion barrels from the Greater Prudhoe Bay area, reaffirms that Alaska is a vital part of this nation's petroleum future," said Senator Murkowski.

The central North Slope lies between NPRA and ANWR, and extends from the Brooks Range northward to the State-Federal offshore boundary. The assessment was based on a review of all available geological, geophysical, and geochemical evidence.

http://murkowski.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=237534