NPRA Oil and Gas Reserves History

It might be helpful to understand the current USGS NPRA oil potential predictions in context. Below are some historical projections made by the USGS.

1.9 BBO      USGS 1976

2.1 BBO      USGS 1980

1.48 BBO    December 31, 2000 (EIA, 2001)

9.3 BBO      USGS 2002 NPRA Only

10.6 BBO    USGS 2002 NPRA Entire Area

10.4 BBO    June 30, 2005 (Bird, et al 2005 and AOGCC, 2005)

0.896 BBO  2010 Updated USGS Assessment of the NPRA

What is apparent from the above is that the current 2010 projections are only slightly less than the projections in 2000. The big change came in 2002 when the USGS increased the potential reserves almost 10 fold. The question one might want to ask is what happened between 2000 and 2002 to allow the USGS to increase reserves of the entire NPRA to such a great extent. The assumptions the USGS made in 2002 turned out to be wrong. They have now scaled back to the projections they made in 2000.

The USGS continues to be optimistic on gas. Below are the historical projections made by the USGS on gas. Please note the substantial change in reserves potential predicted in 2002.

6.3 tcf      USGS 1976

8.5 tcf      USGS 1980

59.7 tcf    USGS 2002 NPRA Only

61.4 tcf    USGS 2002 NPRA Entire Area

52.8 tcf    USGS 2010 NPRA

The USGS may be right about the potential for gas reserves in NPRA because there has been very little exploration for gas in the basin, but we will not find out if they are correct about their projections unless there is a major gas pipeline from the north slope to market the gas. No exploration company will explore for gas without the reasonable likelihood of getting that gas to market.