Does anybody have any credible estimate of how US domestic petroleum is undeveloped?

Question

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

Answer 1

I am a petroleum geologist and I will give you some guidance, but not chapter and verse references....if you are older than about 12 and have some ambition, you should be able to fine lots of material.

1) Check out ANWR....there is a TON of material out there...look harder!

2) Check out the USGS web site,  also the MMS webpage - LOTS of material.

3) Comments about AMWR and the Bakken Shale.....  ANWR needs to be tested because there is NO guarentee that there is recoverable oil there.  The Bakken is being drilled, but the figures being discussed are crazy optimistic.

4) Realize that there are numerous offshore basins (Florida, East Coast, and of course California) that have not been tested and thanks to our NIMBY, and Greenie friends and politicians may never be tested, so people can drive to the beach using Arabian oil and not see production platforms

5)  The US uses over 20 million barrels of oil per day 9 million of which is burned up as gasoline..we could probably do better....

6)  Even if all the undrilled areas were tested, found to be productive, and placed on priduction, the US long ago reached its "peak oil" output.  The US will NEVER, EVER again be self sufficient in oil production - anyone who says so is dreaming....

Answer 2

I am a geologist and I haven't a clue where you got your ANWR data but there is estimated to be between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the region most often talked about.

Additionally, the recent Bakken play discovery in Montana and North Dakota  has been estimated between 271 billion and 503 billion barrels of oil.

We essentially have a limitless resource for all intents and purposes. As newer technologies mature and we ween ourselves off petroleum, I certainly won't lose sleep over this issue.

Answer 3

ANWR has enough oil to heat every American home with natural gas for the next 150 years.

According to the Department of Energy,"Undeveloped domestic oil resources still in the ground total more than one trillion barrels. The resource includes undiscovered oil, "stranded" light oil amenable to CO2-EOR technologies, unconventional oil (deep heavy oil and tar sands) and new petroleum concepts (residual oil in reservoir transition zones)."

So why are gas prices so high?  Congress has said no drilling in ANWR, no drilling off the coasts of Florida (yet all the while, China, Cuba, and Venezuela are. We've shut down oil fields in Colorado,  we won't develop shale oil fields in Colorado or western states (in Colorado alone, there's enough shale to last us a couple of hundred years).  Yesterday we pass legislation that let us sue OPEC.  So ridiculous. Firstly, it'll come back to haunt us, as they control the majority of the market (not to  mention, about 95% of OPEC countries vote against the US in the UN 65%- 87% of the time). Secondly, the left in Congress (based on the leading grillers in the Senate hearings of the oil execs today) are so incredibly pissed off at OPEC for not drilling & refining enough, yet they won't allow the oil companies here to touch a spec of domestic land, even though we know full well that oil production here is possible and viable. We have allowed environmental attorneys to sue the oil companies for possible future destruction of an Alaskan Eskimo village nd threw the polar bear on the endangered species list in "anticipation of possible future extinction" (which has never been done before- in anticipation- which sets a precedent for all other species), protecting its habitat and preventing us from developing, refining, or drilling, in any of the most promising oil rich areas of the country. This, despite that the polar bear population has quadrupled over the past 35 years.  We're talking about seizing windfall profits, which in the 80's, led oil companies to reduce development and alternative energy research drastically, and had the opposite effect on gas prices.   We've banned anyone from building a new refinery for 30 years. We've cut our operational refineries in half since 1982.  We won't develop coal-to-oil, and also we're telling the oil companies which blends they have to make.  On top of all this, all of our Presidential candidates want to introduce Cap & Trade legislation which will increase the price of gas by at least $1.50 a gallon. This, by the way,  is being purported by those in Congress who believe the only way to be less dependent on oil is to "increase the price of oil so much that it tanks the US economy."  In other words, those who want to bring the US economy down to a level on par with the 3rd world, instead of attempting to bring the 3rd world economies up to level equal to that of the U.S. So backwards.  Enviro-nuts are not in it for the environment. If they were, they'd be pro-nuclear power, the safest, cleanest, most efficient while environmentally friendly energy source possible to date. As Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, says, the movement is no longer about protecting the earth. After the fall of Communisim, the environmental movement was by anti-capitalist, anti-corporate activists who have a political agenda they found they could advance it under the guise of furry creatures & health/doomsday scares that pull at people's heartstrings and panic them into falling in line.