NEWS BULLETIN

July 23, 2008 --- Vol.14, No.81July 2008

USGS assesses 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,670 tcf of gas in the Arctic

The U.S. Geological Survey has released its long-awaited appraisal of potential Arctic oil and gas resources. Although USGS has previously published assessments of some Arctic basins, this is the first assessment that the agency has published for the complete region.

“The area north of the Arctic Circle has an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas and 44 million barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum,” USGS said. “… These resources account for 22 percent of the discovered technically recoverable resources in the world.”

Worldwide, the estimated Arctic resources represent 13 percent of undiscovered oil, 30 percent of undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of undiscovered natural gas liquids, with about 84 percent of the resource occurring offshore, USGS said.

USGS thinks that more than half the undiscovered oil resources occur in just three provinces — Arctic Alaska, the Amerasia basin and the East Greenland Rift basin, with 70 percent of the gas resource occurring in the West Siberian basin, the East Barents basin and Arctic Alaska.

See full story in July 27 issue of Petroleum News, available to subscribers online at noon, Friday, July 25 at www.PetroleumNews.com


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