Kline-Rowley Fact Check #1: ANWR

There were several numbers thrown out during the Kline/Rowley debate regarding drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and at one point, Coleen Rowley responded to some claims from Jason Lewis, stating “The good thing about some of your questions is they allow the audience here to do further research.  Hopefully we’ll get some people that are going to cast more light on some of the things you just said.”  That sounds like an invitation for a fact check.

* * *Claim: [The oil] in ANWR will fuel the United States for just a couple, or maybe just a few months.  (Coleen Rowley)

This statement is True, but misleading.  Estimates of recoverable oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge range from 4.3 billion bbl to 7.7 billion bbl.  The United States uses 20 million bbl of oil per day.  If the United States were to use ANWR as its exclusive supplier of oil, recoverable oil in ANWR would be exhausted between 215 and 385 days, or between seven and thirteen months.

However, it would not be possible for the United States to switch to ANWR as sole supplier.  That would require a pumping capacity of 20 million bbl a day from that field alone.  The current largest field in the United States, the Prudhoe Bay field, pumps 400,000 bbl per day.  Using a more reasonable figure–that ANWR would supply 5% of U.S. oil–the field would be exhausted between twelve and 32 years after it came on line.¹

Claim: ANWR could produce between 900,000 and 1.2 million bbl per day.  (Jason Lewis)

This claim is False.  The 2006 Annual Energy Output report found that daily output from ANWR would peak at 780,000 bbl per day.  The higher 1.2 million bbl per day figure comes from a study which included additional drilling off the coast of Alaska, outside of the protected ANWR area.²

Claim: ANWR has two and a half times the total capacity of the Prudhoe Bay field.  (Jason Lewis)

This claim is False.  Prudhoe Bay produces 400,000 bbl a day currently, but that pales in comparison to its heyday.  At its peak in the late eighties, the field produced two million bbl per day.  Additionally, 13 billion bbl of oil has been already pumped from the field, and an estimated three billion bbl remain, meaning the total capacity of Prudhoe Bay is between two and four times the total capacity of ANWR.³

Lewis got to his statement by conflating statistics.  It is true that the ANWR drill site would initially produce more oil daily than Prudhoe Bay, but that is primarily due to the fact that it is a brand-new drill site.  The ANWR field is neither as large as the Prudhoe Bay field, nor would it be as productive as the Prudhoe Bay field even under the most optimistic scenarios.

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Sources:
¹Wikipedia, “Arctic Refuge Drilling Controversy.”
²Media Matters, “Wash. Times joined chorus of ANWR misinformers.”
³Wikipedia, “Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.”