{"id":5814,"date":"2015-02-18T06:38:16","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T11:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5814"},"modified":"2015-02-18T06:38:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T11:38:16","slug":"what-on-earth-are-we-doing-looking-for-oil-in-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5814","title":{"rendered":"What On Earth Are We Doing Looking For Oil In The Arctic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Crude-Oil\/What-On-Earth-Are-We-Doing-Looking-For-Oil-In-The-Arctic.html\" target=\"_blank\">What On Earth Are We Doing Looking For Oil In The Arctic?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Shell is back in; Statoil is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-01-29\/statoil-puts-arctic-exploration-on-hold-after-oil-price-plunge\">pensive<\/a>, but eager; and Russia is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rigzone.com\/news\/article.asp?a_id=137105\">pushing<\/a>\u00a0ahead. Low prices have stunted exploration, but the Arctic is still a hotbed (read: marginally warm-bed) of activity. With so much to lose in the fragile and costly environment, why are we there?<\/p>\n<p>One \u2013 albeit simple \u2013 answer numbers around 90 billion or 1,670 trillion depending on your business. The United States Geological Survey\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usgs.gov\/newsroom\/article.asp?ID=1980#.VOIv9WR4qMY\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0that the area above the Arctic Circle holds 90 billion barrels (bbl) of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas. That\u2019s good for 13 percent of the undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas in the world. Still, it\u2019s not easily accessible \u2013 or easy to market \u2013 with most of the hydrocarbons occurring under the inhospitable and often frozen Arctic seas.<\/p>\n<p>Another \u2013 more hopeful \u2013 answer involves the belief that the Arctic offers some semblance of a path toward energy independence. More specifically, for the largest consumer of all, the United States. US Arctic production began in earnest in the mid 70s following the \u201973-74 oil embargo by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, which sent prices\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/fuelfix.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/15\/oil-price-amnesia\/\">up<\/a>\u00a0over 75 percent. Project Independence, as the Nixon Administration\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/history.state.gov\/milestones\/1969-1976\/oil-embargo\">designed<\/a>\u00a0it, aimed to promote domestic energy independence, including the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Ultimately, the efficiency and production initiatives sent oil imports\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/dnav\/pet\/hist\/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&amp;s=MCRIMUS1&amp;f=A\">tumbling<\/a>\u00a0more than 50 percent by 1985.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Crude-Oil\/Arctic-Oil-On-Life-Support.html\"><strong>Related:\u00a0Arctic Oil On Life Support<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today, US shale has revived the nation\u2019s hope of energy independence \u2013 no matter how off base it may be. Still, the Arctic\u2019s role in furthering this goal is yet to be determined. Its oil-to-gas ratio \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.woodmacresearch.com\/cgi-bin\/wmprod\/portal\/corp\/corpPressDetail.jsp?oid=751298\">approximately<\/a>\u00a03:1 in favor of gas \u2013 limits any widespread appeal. Moreover, the Obama administration has been hesitant to expand leasing opportunities, instead\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/01\/28\/us\/obama-plan-calls-for-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-the-atlantic.html\">favoring<\/a>\u00a0the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What On Earth Are We Doing Looking For Oil In The Arctic? Shell is back in; Statoil is\u00a0pensive, but eager; and Russia is\u00a0pushing\u00a0ahead. Low prices have stunted exploration, but the Arctic is still a hotbed (read: marginally warm-bed) of activity. With so much to lose in the fragile and costly environment, why are we there? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1018,2667,588,592,595,2100,2515],"class_list":["post-5814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-arctic","tag-arctic-oil","tag-oil","tag-oil-price","tag-oil-production","tag-shell","tag-statoil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5815,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5814\/revisions\/5815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}