Full Title: Analysis of Projected Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Author(s): U.S. Energy Information Administration
Publisher(s): U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date: May 1, 2018
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Description (excerpt):
In December 2017, the passage of Public Law 115-971 required the Secretary of the Interior to establish and administer a competitive oil and natural gas program for the leasing, development, production, and transportation of oil and natural gas in and from the coastal plain (1002 Area)2 of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Previously, ANWR was effectively under a drilling moratorium. Because this law was passed after the modeling for the Annual Energy Outlook 2018 (AEO2018) was completed, this article investigates the impact of this law change on the Reference case projections in the AEO2018.3 The middle resource case (Mean ANWR) presented in this article includes the consideration of the law change and shows an increase of 3.4 billion barrels in cumulative U.S. crude oil production from 2031 to 2050 compared with the AEO2018 Reference case. Production from ANWR does not start until 2031 because of the time needed to acquire leases, explore, and develop the required production infrastructure. The crude oil prices in the Mean ANWR case are sufficiently high to support development given the assumed resource base and cost estimates.