A new study suggests the equivalent of 112 billion barrels of oil lies undiscovered underneath the sea ice and frigid waters of North America's Arctic, adding new urgency to the debate over control of those resources.
What do you guys think about this? What should the USA and Canada do about it?
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The report released Wednesday by the United States Geological Survey has for the first time put some hard numbers behind the energy potential of the North.
Total undiscovered global reserves north of the Arctic Circle are estimated at 412 billion barrels of oil equivalent - most off the coast of Russia. That's about one-third of the world's undiscovered gas and about one-sixth of its undiscovered oil.
"That's huge," said William Lacey, director of FirstEnergy Capital, a Calgary energy analysis firm. "It's massive in terms of the resource.
"It highlights why there's some potential boundary disputes in the North."
The 112 billion equivalent off North America is likely to be composed of 49 billion barrels of oil, 340 trillion cubic feet of gas and another two billion barrels of natural gas liquids.
"Most of the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially unexplored with respect to petroleum," the report says. "The extensive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth."
The geological survey divided the Arctic into 33 zones. The geology of each was studied and 25 of those zones were considered to have a greater than 10 per cent probability of holding at least 50 million barrels of oil or equivalent.
Those 25 zones were then more carefully assessed by type of rock and formation. Estimates were arrived at by comparing them with other, more well-understood basins in southern latitudes.
What do you guys think about this? What should the USA and Canada do about it?
Last edited by Ryan (2008-07-23 19:19:15)
