Which contains more oil?

So * couldn't find oil in Texas, but he thinks it's in Alaska? :eyes:

....U.S. is is way down on the list as far as known oil reserves at about 32.0 billion bbl or less that 2.6% of the world's total. The middle east with less than half the area of the U.S. has over 60% of the world's reserves. I think Russia is ahead of the U.S. with something like 50 billion bbl. We must import since we use over 55% of the world's production.

Edit: If ANWAR is the stategic reserve, that's about 750 million bbl or only about 75 days worth if we depleted that amount at one million barrels a day. It might bring prices down, but not by much.

ANWR has a mean valued reserve of 10.4 billion gallons. I believe the reserve has something on the order of 960 milllon gallons, so ANWR has 10 times as such oil, although, this number is only an estimate.

LINK: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm

-snip-

Assessment Results

The total quantity of technically recoverable oil within the entire assessment area is estimated to be between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels (95-percent and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels. Technically recoverable oil within the ANWR 1002 area (excluding State and Native areas) is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels (95- and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels (table 1).

-snip-

on edit: see post below, I was way off on the reserves

...What the hell are we doing trying to tap into something like that? Jeez, did the oil companies not learn their lesson from the Exxon Valdez disaster? That refuge has so little oil it is stupid to even think about drilling there. It's measured in millions of gallons, not barrels! Is that what Bush and his rethugs are after. Screw them.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5015445/

(snip)

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established in 1975 after the original OPEC-induced “oil shock,” is a series of underground salt domes in four sites in Texas and Louisiana. Beginning in 2001, when the reserves stood at about 540 million barrels, the Bush administration has been steadily topping off the stockpile, which has a capacity of 700 million barrels. Currently, the SPR contains about 660 million barrels.

http://www.anwr.org/features/pdfs/ANWR_estimates.pdf
This site also refers to ANWR as having an estimated 10.5 billion barrels.

ANWR:

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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), estimates that, assuming a price of US $24 per barrel:

There is a 95% chance of finding 1.9 billion barrels (BBO) of economically recoverable oil in the Arctic Refuge's 1002 Area.
A 5% chance of finding 9.4 BBO, and
A 50% chance of finding 5.3 BBO

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http://environment.about.com/cs/energy/a/ANWR_4.htm

Strategic Petroleum Reserve

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The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an emergency petroleum store maintained by the United States Department of Energy. It is the largest emergency supply in the world with the capacity to hold up to 700 million barrels (111 million m³) of crude oil.

The reserve is stored at four sites on the Gulf of Mexico. The sites are Big Hill and Bryan Mound in Texas, and West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw in Louisiana. Each site contains a number of artificial caverns created in salt domes below the surface.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve

...when compared to the output of the Middle East. Any stats on that?

and Saudi is about 8.7 million bpd

On edit:

So the math is that ANWR has roughly 1000 days of Saudi production...big f'n deal.

...but the cheap price of Alaskan oil that is the selling point for the Bushies?

The Bushies know there isn't enough oil in ANWR to make it worth the effort. However, drilling in ANWR will do two things favorable to the Bushies:

1. It'll (do much to) break the back of the American environmental movement giving a huge victory to the neo-cons, much as US unions suffered a symbolic blow when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1981; and...
2. It'll open up the refuge to other mineral extraction projects, such as strip mining. Drilling for oil in ANWR is merely getting the foot in the door. Once that is accomplished, strip mining doesn't seem so bad.

In the long run, drilling in ANWR has much more symbolic value for the Pukes.

The pipeline is privately owned and fully amortized. Opening up ANWR makes the pipeline consortium drool. The TAPS right-of-way agreements had to be renewed this year. The (Alaska) state RoW was supposed to be renewe for 30 years, last I heard.

to even start producing any real flow of oil...So what in the fuck is Bush talking about?

And I've heard many, many reports stating that there's nowhere near the amount of oil in the ANWR as the greedy, fuck the environment BushCo & the oil companies claiming (or lying about).

why didn't you list ashcroft's hair?
--it's always so shiny...

The ANWR's oil or the Federal reserve tanks?

Can oil eventually rust through metal? I'm assuming it's kept in big metal barrels, I could care less if it was contained in a magnetic containment field with Mr. Scott operating the controls, but one has to wonder how they can keep a ton of liquid for decades without entropy saying "Hi there, mind if I break in?"...

It's a tinfoilhat thought but if they're not containing their oil properly, the financial and ecological implications of a leak would be catastrophic...

it is kept in salt caves, which supposedly are completely sealed. If you will remember, it was started up in response to the first OPEC embargo in 1973.

Exploration in ANWR is forbidden. Only cursory exploration back in the 1960's during the exploration of the gigantic Prudhoe Bay was done in what's now called ANWR's coastal plain. By cursory, I mean they few over the tundra in planes and tossed rolls of toilet paper to see if they turned brown from surface crude oil. They did. There's oil there, but no one knows how much.

Pro-development interests exaggerate estimates, opponents and environmentalists trivialize the quantity of oil, saying it's only good for 6 months of US consumption. To me, that's kind of like arguing not to pick up $20,000 off the ground, because it'll only pay my bills for 6 months.

But if there's any, there's sure as hell more than the Strategic Reserve, which is NOTHING. It's set aside for the government's use in a crisis, not for market consumption. It's neglible.

If Bush had won his ANWR vote a few years back, ANWR still wouldn't be on line today. The estimates are about 10 years to get it up and producing. Most environmental studies, safeguarding, etc.

I think it is the shits that a few seimic tests can't be carried out in ANWR. They won't do nearly the damage that full scale production could do. And then we could make a better estimate.

BTW, anybody planning a vacation or research trip to ANWAR? Rather go to Glacier Bay. or Mesa Verde right?

Visit Denali, Tongass Forest, or Prince William Sound instead.

I used to work in Prudhoe. Just vast expanses of flat, featureless terrain. Lots of critters, but you can see the same ones in Denali.

Refining capacity:

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LONDON (Reuters) - A lack of refining capacity that has plagued U.S. energy supply since the turn of the decade is now becoming a global phenomenon, threatening to drive oil price up for years to come, analysts say.

This is a dramatic shift from just two years ago when companies were exiting the refining sector due to poor profits.

Now, surging U.S. and Chinese fuel demand and the failure to build or significantly upgrade plants in past decades are making the fuel supply picture extremely tight, leaving refineries less able to respond to disruptions like strikes or fires and increasing the risk of fuel price spikes.

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This is the Google cache of the CNN/Money article (no longer online): http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:HuGZNZIFoTAJ:money.cnn.com/2004/04/26/news/international/refining.reut/+petroleum+refining+capacity&hl=en

Our gas prices wouldn't be so high if the refineries weren't operating full out, like they are. So, the answer is either build more refineries or cut demand. Since refineries pollute, I'm in favor of mandatory consumption cuts (like alternate day driving, for example). Then you'd see prices drop like a rock.

Or maybe 'tanks.

This really isn't an opinion question. It's more an arithmetic question, and it looks like most DU'ers who voted need some serious remediation.

that's what "anwr" has. also, please don't call it anwr, that was thought up by the oil companies as a way of making it seem less harmful to drill there, because "artic national wildlife refuge" sounds too pristine to be fucked with.