More US Western land open for oil leasing - study

www.planetark.org USA: January 20, 2003

WASHINGTON - About two-thirds of federally owned land in key areas of the U.S. West is available to lease for oil and natural gas drilling, more land than expected by officials, according to a Bush administration report released.

Environmental groups said the widely anticipated study by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management could add momentum to the administration's efforts to streamline the leasing process and promote energy exploration in Western wilderness areas.

The analysis of federal land spanning 59 million acres in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico estimated the area contains 3.9 billion barrels of oil and 138.5 trillion cubic (Tcf) feet of gas that is technically recoverable.

The data is of great interest to energy companies, which have long pressed for the Bureau of Land Management to streamline and reform its leasing procedures.

While the report stopped short of proposing new energy policies, Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary for Interior's land management, said there were fewer restrictions to block energy development than had been previously thought.

"This report does identify that, at least from a leasing stage, the stipulations that land management agencies put on resources still allow a majority of those oil and gas resources to be leased," Watson told reporters.

Of the land inventoried, 2.2 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil and 86.6 Tcf of technically recoverable gas are in areas covered by standard leasing procedures.

However, 21 million acres of the area cannot be leased because of environmental restrictions. That puts off limits about 600 million barrels of oil and 16 Tcf of natural gas.

Energy that is technically recoverable may not be economic to develop, depending on market prices and the costs of drilling and transporting production.

The U.S. consumes about 23 Tcf of natural gas and 7.3 billion barrels of oil annually. Half the oil must be imported from countries such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

GREEN GROUPS NOT IMPRESSED

The study was ordered by the Clinton administration in 2000 and funded by Congress to assess the energy potential on lands in the Western United States.

President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, made energy exploration in the Western U.S. a focal-point of his energy plan to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and to meet future demand for natural gas.

Conservation groups said the new report will boost support for energy exploration because it outlines all oil and natural gas reserves that can be recovered, not just those that are profitable for energy companies to remove.

Pete Morton, an economist with the Wilderness Society, said that because most of the land is already available for leasing, the administration has no grounds to further ease environmental rules for energy exploration.

"This report completely undercuts any agenda (by the Bush administration) for waiving any environmental laws to pursue oil and gas development," said Morton who authored an oil and gas assessment in the West last year.

In its report, the Wilderness Society estimated that if more drilling was allowed in key national forests and monuments in the West, the combined areas would produce only enough natural gas to meet U.S. demand for about 11 weeks, and crude oil to satisfy consumption for about 3 weeks.

OILMEN WANT PERMITS STREAMLINED

The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents thousands of oil and natural gas producers, praised the Bureau of Land Management report.

Diemer True, chairman of the group, said producers have been reluctant to develop federal land in parts of the United States because of a cumbersome permit process, excessive environmental reviews and litigation that makes it too time consuming and costly.

Watson said the administration has made little progress to streamline the permit process during the last few years.

"Now we know that these resources in the inter-mountain West should be available for leasing," said True. "We need to make sure it happens."

The new report studied the San Juan Paradox in New Mexico, the Montana Thrust Belt, Colorado's Uinta Piceance, and Wyoming's Green River Valley and Powder River Basin.

The Bureau of Land Management said it would begin similar reviews of oil and gas on other Western federal lands, including the Wind River Basin in Wyoming and the Eastern Great Basin in Utah and Idaho.

Story by Christopher Doering