Where is the Oil We Can Use to Lower Prices?

The United States is sitting on oceans of oil, in one form or another, but Congress has placed many of our oil-rich areas off-limits.

These include a few thousand acres of Alaska’s 19.6 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This small portion of ANWR is believed to contain 10 billion barrels of oil-an amount equivalent to 15 years of imports from Saudi Arabia. The potential drilling area is a barren piece of land, not the beautiful mountains the environmental groups show to induce Congress to maintain the ban on drilling in ANWR. We are told that it will take ten years to bring the oil on line. We were first told that ten years ago; if we had been drilling then we would have the oil now.

Source: Doug Ross@Journal

Even more oil is located in other restricted areas throughout the United States. America’s Outer Continental shelf holds over 80 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, yet 85 percent of it is off-limits. Those opposed to drilling bring up environmental concerns, but improvements in technology have made it possible to reach large areas underground with a small footprint, and with extremely strict drilling standards the risk of offshore spills is greatly reduced.

Ironically, China is now drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida, in cooperation with Cuba, where our own oil companies are not allowed to drill.

The United States is estimated to have more than 2 trillion barrels of oil shale resources. A moderate estimate of the recoverable oil in the largest formation is 800 billion barrels, which is three times Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. Much of it is under federal government land. In the past, it has been expensive to extract oil from shale. But with the rise in oil prices and with new technologies, shale is now very competitive. However, Congress has blocked the regulations needed for oil shale recovery to proceed, and thus this vast resource remains closed.

Further reading:

“The Good and Bad Approaches to Affordable Energy Policy,” by Ben Liebermen. Hertiage WebMemo #1927.

“Omnibus Prohibits Oil Shale Development,” by Nicolas Loris. Heritage WebMemo #1754.

“Oil Shale: Toward a Strategic Unconventional Fuels Supply Policy,” by Daniel Dine, Ph.D. Heritage Lecture #1015.