The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should not be open to further oil exploration

After last week when the U.S. Senate voted 52-48 to advance drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there is no question that this issue is front and center again. The facts have never been more important.

I’ve spent most of my career working as a petroleum geologist for BP, mainly in Alaska.  I participated in eight seasons of field work there, was actively involved in the development of the Prudhoe Bay Field, and in the Kuparuk River and Endicott discoveries.  I initiated several important exploration wells on the North Slope and in the Beaufort Sea. I was a member of the Exploration Committee of the American Petroleum Institute (API), and at one time I managed exploration for BP in Alaska and the West Coast. As a consultant I wrote a book for clients on the future petroleum potential of Alaska.

{mosads}Based on my extensive field work and experience on the North Slope of Alaska, I recommend that you not open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to further oil exploration and development.  Here’s why.

BP carried out extensive geological surveys in the area in the 1960s. They also ran a smaller survey in 1971 to confirm their evaluation. The type of reservoirs found in the Prudhoe Bay – Kuparuk areas are not present in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or they are so extensively deformed as to be not commercially viable. The one prominent structure there, the Marsh Creek Anticline in folded Tertiary rocks appears to be of the decollement type and dies out rapidly with depth. Further to the east, the rocks exposed in the Niguanak structure where oil seeps have been recorded are highly deformed Jurassic and older rocks.   

In addition, I must stress, oil seeps are not an indication of producible oil. For example, from the massive oil seeps on the Alaska Peninsula and the Lower Cook Inlet, neither have produced oil in commercial quantities. Also needed are adequate reservoirs, seals and migration paths.

Simply put, the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge does not have promising oil bearing rock formations.

The results of the Kaktovik well drilled 31 years ago in 1986 have not been released. If anything significant had been found, there would have been a call for further evaluation. Tenneco drilled the Aurora well four miles offshore of the Refuge and found a sequence of Tertiary rocks underlain by a thick sequence of Jurassic rocks with no significant oil shows. BP discovered the Sourdough Field close to the Refuge on the other side of the Canning River Fault and has since sold its interest there to an independent.  

In 2002, the USGS estimated that the coastal plain might hold between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil, with a mean estimate of 7.7 billion barrels. That estimate did not project the cost or commercial viability of possible development. I would put very little value on the USGS estimates of undiscovered recoverable reserves in the 1002 area. Such government reports have proven to be notoriously unreliable in other places.

The major companies involved in North Alaska oil production – BP, Conoco-Phillips and Exxon-Mobil – are keen to maintain production on the Trans Alaska Pipeline and are therefore developing the Point Thomson and the Moose’s Tooth fields. But the reality is this: there are other less sensitive and less costly places to explore, and there is not great interest in developing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There are safer bets, and companies are moving to develop renewable energy sources.   

I do not believe that there are any adequate, commercially viable reservoirs in the Arctic Refuge. Therefore there is little purpose to carry out more sophisticated geophysical surveys, or to drill there. The original purpose for setting aside the Arctic Refuge was “to protect the wildlife, wilderness and recreational values” by administrative executive order under President Dwight Eisenhower. That is how it should be.

Christopher Lewis, Retired BP Manager of Exploration and author of “Tales from the Oil and Gas Fields and Thereabouts”.