Big Oil Companies not interested in drilling in ANWAR? Tests kept secret?? [View All]

Big Oil Steps Aside in Battle Over Arctic
By JEFF GERTH

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - George W. Bush first proposed drilling for oil in a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska in 2000, after oil industry experts helped his presidential campaign develop an energy plan. Five years later, he is pushing the proposal again, saying the nation urgently needs to increase domestic production. But if Mr. Bush's drilling plan passes in Congress after what is expected to be a fierce fight, it may prove to be a triumph of politics over geology.

Once allied, the administration and the oil industry are now far apart on the issue. The major oil companies are largely uninterested in drilling in the refuge, skeptical about the potential there. Even the plan's most optimistic backers agree that any oil from the refuge would meet only a tiny fraction of America's needs.

--snip--

Wayne Kelley, who worked in Alaska as a petroleum engineer for Halliburton, the oil services corporation, and is now managing director of RSK, an oil consulting company, said the refuge's potential could "only be determined by drilling."

"The enthusiasm of government officials about ANWR exceeds that of industry because oil companies are driven by market forces, investing resources in direct proportion to the economic potential, and the evidence so far about ANWR is not promising," Mr. Kelley said.

--snip--

Ken Bird, a geological survey official who worked on the study, said the federal geologists did not have access to test data from the only exploratory well drilled on the refuge, by Chevron Texaco and BP in the 1980's. An official with one of the companies, speaking anonymously because of the confidentiality of the test, said that if the results had been encouraging the company would be more engaged in the political effort to open the refuge.

There has not been much discussion about the refuge between the companies and the Bush administration, according to industry and government officials.

more...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/politics/21refuge.html?ei=5088&en=011827559528ad9f&ex=1266728400&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&position=


This is about so much more than trying to get a few barrels of oil. The republicans have been denied this for so long and when Clinton vetoed this, it became a vendetta--that and so many other issues are driving this ridiculous fight to drill. Rather than spend the money for a year or two's worth of oil they should be working towards more renewable energy--oh, damn, but this is the Bush administration we are talking about... x(