Pumping Up TAPS: Four billion barrels on and nearshore

Depending on which agency or company you ask, you will get different estimates for undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional oil resources onshore the North Slope and in adjacent state waters.

According to the agency the State of Alaska normally most trusts, the U.S. Geological Survey, the magic numbers for the area between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the east and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the west, are 2.6 billion barrels on the low end; 3.9 billion as a mean average; and 5.9 billion on the high end.

Those are 2005 numbers using 2004 technology.

But because the estimates also contain resources in small, non-economic accumulations, USGS said the mean volumes are unlikely to ever be produced.

In ANWR’s 1002 area, USGS estimates run the gamut from to 5.7 to 10.4 to 16 billion barrels.