The Esmark glacier on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle. (AFP/PIERRE-HENRY DESHAYES/NEWSCOM)
USGS: Arctic Circle chock full of oil and gas
By Eoin O'Carroll | 07.25.08
A report by the US Geological Survey found that the region inside the Arctic Circle contains just over one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable oil and natural-gas resources.
The report, the largest-ever survey of energy resources north of the Arctic Circle, found that the area holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
“Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what’s out there,” said USGS Director Mark Myers in a press release. “With this assessment, we’re providing the same information to everyone in the world so that the global community can make those difficult decisions.”
Several news outlets are all over this story. Here’s what they have to say about what I think are the most important questions:
How much is it, really?
Most news outlets that covered this story say that, at today’s consumption rate of 86 million barrels of oil a day, the oil in the Arctic would meet global demand for three years.
Keith Johnson, The Wall Street Journal’s environmental blogger, notes that it would be 12 years if the United States could keep all the oil for itself. “The Arctic reserves might bring a little relief to tight markets,” writes Mr. Johnson, “but they don’t look like the answer to declining production in oil fields in the rest of the world.”
As for the natural gas reserves, The New York Times reports that the region holds about 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas, an amount equal to Russia’s proven gas reserves, which are the world’s largest. But most of the natural gas estimated to be in the Arctic is also in Russia: as the Associated Press reports, the majority of it is concentrated in two Russian provinces.
How much would it cost to extract it?
Pumping oil out of the hot desert is one thing. Pumping it out of the Arctic seabed is another matter altogether. The New York Times’s Dot Earth blogger, Andrew Revkin, calls Arctic drilling “ridiculously hard,” and he directs readers to a story he wrote in 2004 that highlights the challenges of drilling there.
Johnson, The Wall Street Journal blogger, points to a USGS excercise in Arctic oil number-crunching [Excel spreadsheet] that calculates that a billion-barrel field would cost about $37 per barrel to extract, plus at least another $3 in exploration costs. By comparison, CNN reported last year that it costs about $2 per barrel to pump oil from the ground in Saudi Arabia, and $5 to$7 per barrel in Venezuela and Azerbaijan.
The irony of course is that global warming is making it easier to extract these resources by melting Arctic ice.
Who owns it?
Recent years have seen a race among the Arctic powers – the United States, Russia, Denmark, Canada, and Norway – to lay claim to the ocean floor at the North Pole.
But the USGS estimates that most of the oil is not at the pole, but near Canada, Russia, and the United States. The USGS found that more than half of the oil resources are in just three regions: Arctic Alaska (30 billion barrels), the Amerasia Basin (9.7 billion barrels) and the East Greenland Rift Basins (8.9 billion barrels).
More than 70 percent of the natural gas is thought to occur in three regions – the West Siberian Basin, the East Barents Basins, and Arctic Alaska.
So it looks as though Arctic Alaska has the greatest energy potential, with Russia also having an important stake as well, particularly in natural gas. But there is undoubtedly also some oil and natural gas in Arctic regions whose sovereignty is disputed.
The Globe and Mail, a Canadian daily, provides a breakdown of exactly where and how much all the oil and natural gas is (scroll down to the end of the story).
What’s the environmental impact?
Dot Earth’s Revkin discusses the possibility of an oil spill in icy Arctic waters: “The Arctic is a very different place,” he writes, “both because the water is so much colder that oil tends to congeal more, and because sea ice (at least in winter these days) can stall the spread of oil but also make it harder to clean up.”
But the question on most people’s minds is climate change. If we were to burn all that oil and natural gas, how much CO2 would be added to the atmosphere?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a single barrel of oil emits 0.43 metric tons, or 948 pounds, of carbon dioxide. So 90 billion barrels would emit 38.7 billion metric tons of C02.
According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis center, 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas emits about 0.052 metric tons, or 115 pounds, of CO2. Divide that by 1,000 and then multiply by 1,670 trillion, and we get about 87 billion metric tons of CO2.
None of these figures include the emissions produced by extraction or transportation of the fuels.
By comparison, current global consumption of fossil fuels produce about 27 billion tons of CO2 annually.
<< Updated: U.S. public’s thirst for oil prodding Congress to act | MainComments
2. peter sterling | 07.25.08
A US group has a prior claim to much of the Arctic’s oil and gas.
See; http://www.unoilgas.com http://www.aoag.com
This Claim could, if backed up by the US and Canadian governments and major oil companies, be used as a lever to secure immediately, the most prospective Amerasia Basin and Chukchi Plateau extension region immediately in front of Alaska and Canada, leaving the adjacent Russian Bogus Claim area in disputed territorial status at UNCLOS, possibly for decades.
We can’t be energy independent if we are relying on Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Russia. … We are stupid if we aren’t willing to drill our own oil reserves.
Americans are now realizing that there is no immediately available, affordable substitute for hydrocarbons energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it…. It is not “just another commodity” but the precondition of all modern commodities and services. Hydrocarbons energy is vital in order to create and sustain economic and social development. Our whole economy reflects the relative costs of energy: the cars we drive, the houses we occupy, the kinds of factories we have and the equipment in them.
“…If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, …the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s — the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation… In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.” Ben Stein
3. cpt.oil | 07.26.08
It is time to open this area up.The U.S. is currently sending 700 billion a year over seas along with alot of jobs keep the money and the jobs in the U.S.A.We need to have the wells and pipe line in place for national security.Lets get it done befor its to late.
4. Peter | 07.28.08
Well, russians are the only ones who has the technology and ight equipment in right quantities to start drilling. Russians were there first there anyway.
5. Bruce Lierman | 07.29.08
… In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.”
Ben Stein
So even in Mr. Stein’s distorted view, we can expect industrial society to collapse in 12 to 50 years, depending on whose estimate of remaining reserves you subscribe to.
Perhaps, just perhaps, we could ease this transition by beginning now to 1)conserve the resources we have, 2) use our remaining fossil fuel reserves as judiciously as possible to develop other, more sustainable means of industrial production, 3) closely examine just to what degree fossil fuel is a necessary ingredient of happiness and satisfaction, and 4) determine how, morally and politically, we can best insure a fair sharing of the burden of this transition among all people and species of the planet. The right to a Sunday drive, a power boat, an ATV or even an automobile is not guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, much less the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
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1. Andrei | 07.25.08
Funny how the report comes out amid the pressure to drill there. As always, the office of Vice President had nothing to do with it.