It's all in how you spin it...

[Oak]

...and how you do the math?

These two articles were in my Wednesday newspapers. I was amused the the angles taken on the same story. Someone doesn't know how to do math, though.

BLM takes complete inventory of oil, gas

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

There’s not much oil and gas in northwest Colorado that energy companies can’t get to if they want it.

More than 80 percent of all federal land in the Uinta-Piceance Basin is available for oil and gas leasing, leaving only 17.5 percent out of reach of energy developers.

That’s the conclusion of a congressionally mandated Bureau of Land Management study that surveyed 11 different energy-rich basins nationwide for federal oil and gas resources, including more than 18.9 million acres of federally owned land — including national parks and wilderness areas — in the Uinta-Piceance Basin.

The basin is a large swath of land roughly bordered by Utah’s Wasatch Mountains on the west, Dinosaur National Monument on the north, Gunnison on the east and Gateway on the south.

Nearly all of the oil and gas reserves on federal land in the basin — 1.08 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 108 million barrels of oil — are available and accessible to leasing, excluding oil shale reserves. Only a fraction of that, 8.6 percent, is untouchable.

But, of all accessible energy, only 27.8 percent of federal oil reserves and about a quarter of federal gas reserves in the basin are available for leasing with minimal or no environmental restrictions.

The total federal mineral estate includes 21.2 billion barrels of oil, including 20.6 billion barrels of oil that’s undiscovered, but technically recoverable. The study estimates that nearly 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas exist beneath federal land, with nearly 182 trillion of those cubic feet yet to be discovered.

About 37 percent of all the nation’s federal land is off-limits to any energy development, the study says.

“This study is an unbiased reflection of what’s on the ground,” BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said Tuesday during a telephone news conference.

As part of the Energy Act of 2000, Congress required the BLM to inventory the nation’s oil and gas reserves that lie beneath all federal land and determine the impediments to developing those resources. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress expanded the study, called the Energy Policy and Conservation Act Phase II Inventory, to include unstudied areas in the West and Alaska’s North Slope.

The results of the study will help federal land managers develop management plans that account for areas that have high oil and gas production potential and plan for greater protection of areas that aren’t as likely to produce vast amounts of energy, according to the study summary.

The study didn’t include oil shale because Congress asked the BLM to study only traditional sources of oil and gas, said Richard Watson, manager of the inventory project.

The study included national parks and wilderness areas because Congress mandated that minerals under all federal land be inventoried. Those minerals, however, are considered inaccessible and unavailable for development.

Clarke said she wants to balance resource protection with energy development, and the BLM may add stipulations to oil and gas leases in areas where a “wildlife herd” exists.[Wonder where Clarke got her wildlife degree. ]

But, she said, there are challenges to that arrangement. The study, she said, “says to me we have a real challenge balancing our multiple-use mission in a growing West. We need to be vigilant about our care of the environment.”

She said she recognizes that people care about the quality of land impacted by energy development.

The study results will be sent to Congress.

“They’ll have to weigh into what the significance of this data is,” Clarke said.

EnCana spokesman Doug Hock said Tuesday the inventory isn’t likely to have any impact on the company, which operates on a large tract of private property near Parachute as well as on public land.

“We have a good inventory to work from,” he said. “I don’t believe that those (environmental stipulations) would have a tremendous impact on us.”

Expanse of public land not drillable

Survey shows vast areas rich in oil, gas are closed to federal energy leases. The BLM study, which an environmental group calls "misleading," finds 46% of the 99 million acres inventoried is off-limits.

By Kim McGuire
Denver Post Staff Writer
DenverPost.com
Article Last Updated:11/28/2006 10:19:24 PM MST


Even though the number of new oil and gas wells drilled on federal land continues to skyrocket, a new government survey shows vast areas of energy-rich public land are off-limits to development.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management inventoried more than 99 million acres of federal land - stretching from Alaska to Florida - that hold 76 percent of the nation's federal onshore oil and gas resources.

Within the 99 million acres, more than 51 percent of the oil and 27 percent of the gas were closed to drilling, the survey said.

About 45.5 million acres, or 46 percent, is closed to federal energy leases - a loss of more than 10 billion barrels of oil or 50 trillion cubic feet of gas, the survey said.

Those federal lands include some of the nation's most pristine national parks and scenic wilderness areas on national forestland.

BLM officials say the survey emphasizes the federal government's challenge managing public lands that are designated for both energy development and recreation.

"What it says to me is that we have a real challenge balancing our multiple-use mission in a growing West," BLM director Kathleen Clarke said. "It's not a simple task."

Environmental groups called the survey "misleading" and said it may be used by the Bush administration to support efforts to increase drilling on public land.

In a report released in October, The Wilderness Society estimated 118,000 new wells will be drilled on public lands in Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana by 2026.

"Anyone who's been in the Rockies the last five years and doesn't think industry has enough access to public lands doesn't pass the laugh test," said Pete Morton, an economist with The Wilderness Society.

Industry officials, however, said the report underscores the point that vast energy resources are domestically available, which can help drive down consumers' energy bills.

"I think the big story here in my mind is that this report provides more evidence that American consumers benefit from opening non-park, non-wilderness areas for production," said Marc Smith, director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States.

In Colorado and Utah, the survey indicates that 35 percent of the federal land in the Uinta-Piceance Basin is not open to leasing.

The off-limits land there contains about 17 percent of federally owned oil and 15 percent gas, the survey said.

In the Paradox-San Juan Basin, about 49 percent of federal land is closed to leasing, a loss of about 23 percent of the oil and 7 percent of natural gas, according to the survey.

The survey, ordered by Congress, follows a 2003 report that indicated there were fewer restrictions placed on drilling three years ago.
In the Rocky Mountain region, 14 percent of the federal land the BLM surveyed was off-limits to drilling.

Some energy companies drilling in Colorado say they aren't feeling a pinch in being shut out of public lands. Doug Hock, a spokesman for Encana Corp., said the company is leasing 1.2 million acres in Colorado - more than 943,000 of which are federal land.

"Our plate is pretty full in terms of where we're working and what we're producing," Hock said. "We've got a good land base to work off."

 

[1_pointer]

Sweet! I can do math like that too, maybe I need to get into non-renewables. You ought to see me calculate AUMs!