Start 2009 Off Right With The "Drill Baby, Drill!" Reality Check - Energy Bulletin/Oil Drum

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How realistic is it to believe that opening all of America to oil exploration and development will cause a surge in production? It may surprise most Americans, but over the last 15 years, millions of acres of federal lands and waters have been opened to oil exploration and development. Particularly important in that regard are the millions of acres in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).

A large number of fields, many quite large, have been brought on-line during the last 15 years including Alpine (Alaska), Northstar (Alaska), satellites of the Prudhoe Bay field (Alaska), satellites of the Kuparak field (Alaska), satellites of the Alpine field (Alaska), Mars (GOM), Auger (GOM), Ursa (GOM), Ram-Powell (GOM), Thunderhorse (GOM), Mad Dog (GOM), Tahiti (GOM), Holstein (GOM), Diana-Hoover (GOM), Atlantis (GOM), Na Kika (GOM), Brutus (GOM), Matterhorn (GOM), Neptune (GOM) and many more.

In spite of all the oil field development in the US over the last 15 years, field production of crude oil + condensate has declined every year during that period with a total decline of about 2.1 million barrels/day (b/d) from 1992 to 2007. Even since 2000, when the pace of new oilfield development in Alaska and the deepwater GOM has increased, US oil production has still declined about 760,000 b/d.

In Alaska, the addition of all the Alaskan fields listed above only caused a plateau in Alaskan production for a few years around 2000. Production has since reverted to the relentless decline that started in 1989.

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http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47588

We certainly do not need another one of Bush's surges and THE COAL INDUSTRIES TOXIC TERRORISM. The beautiful Wise County, Virginia landscape is disappearing at a rapid clip. http://www.wisecountyissues.com Appalachia has been bombed and blasted right into Third World America.

Far more than any comparable area on the planet. (The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, assigns a unique, coded number to each well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API_well_number) Given the extent to which the country has been perforated, it's hard to believe there are any major finds still out there.