Oil: ANWR, Offshore, leases.

[SirNitram]

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From the report:

Offshore leases(I was wrong, Ossus, they are already offered; the ban is relatively new and doesn't stop leasing, apparently.) are open for 82% of natural gas and 79% of oil known to exist on the Continental Shelf region.

Existing offshore leases are 44 million acres. Only 10.5 million are in use.

In the region near ANWR, there is 91 million acres open for leasing, onshore and offshore. 11.8 million of those have actually been leased, and little of it is used.

ANWR itself is projected to peak at 780,000 barrels a day in 20 years, at then drop.

Estimates using the same generous method to make ANWR seem profitable suggest that using the currently leased but inactive land would produce 4.8 million barrels a day at peak, effectively double the domestic production.



Now, I myself find the Minermal Management's numbers suspect, but why believe ANWR is so much richer than all the rest of the ground?