US Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke issued an updated resource assessment showing that the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, Western Beaufort Sea, adjacent Alaska state and Native lands, and state waters might contain 17.6 billion bbl of crude oil and more than 50 tcf of natural gas.
Zinke listed recent discoveries among reasons the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and US Geological Survey sharply increased their estimates of mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources onshore and offshore.
USGS led onshore assessment, and BOEM led offshore efforts with data contributed by the US Bureau of Land Management. State and industry partners provided additional information.
Onshore, USGS estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources at 8.7 billion bbl of oil (up from 1.5 billion bbl in a 2010 resource estimate) and 25 tcf of gas.
Offshore, BOEM’s revised estimates of mean undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the Beaufort Sea Outer Continental Shelf Planning Area are 8.9 billion bbl of oil and 27.7 tcf of gas. The updated assessment resulted in a net increase of nearly 700 million boe over BOEM’s 2016 Beaufort Sea Planning Area assessment.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
