Murkowski Welcomes New Report on Domestic Oil and Gas Resources
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today welcomed the release of a report by the National Petroleum Council (NPC) that points to newly and greatly expanded domestic oil and natural gas resources that have been unlocked by recent and significant advances in technology.
“This report underscores what I have been saying for a very long time: that our nation has a tremendous natural resource base. It’s critical, not just to our energy security, but to our economic security as well, that we responsibly and safely develop more of our resources as quickly as possible. Even as we strive to develop cleaner technologies, oil and natural gas will continue to play a critical role in meeting our energy needs well into the future,” Murkowski said.
“The oil and gas industry is vital to the U.S. economy, supporting millions of high-paying American jobs and generating billions of dollars in federal and state revenues each year. Given the severe challenges we face with regard to the federal budget, it’s incredible to me that we have not been able to come together as a government and take some serious steps to accelerate and expand our natural resource development,” Murkowski said.
The NPC report was commissioned by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who tasked the NPC with developing an up-to-date understanding of the potential oil and natural gas supply in North America, and to examine the contribution that natural gas can make to reduce the carbon intensity of the domestic fuel mix.
The study reached four major conclusions:
- America’s natural gas resource base is enormous and offers significant, potentially transformative benefits for the U.S. economy, energy security and the environment;
- Contrary to conventional wisdom, the North American oil resource base can provide substantial supply for decades to come;
- We will continue to rely on these natural gas and oil resources even as alternatives become more economically viable on a large scale; and
- Realizing the benefits of natural gas and oil requires environmentally responsible development of both energy supplies and the infrastructure to support them.
According to the report, the United States has technically recoverable resources of up to 3,600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That assessment does not include potentially vast resources of methane hydrates in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico, which are estimated to become producible in the 2035-2050 timeframe. The study also concludes that the United States and Canada combined could produce up to 22.5 million barrels of oil a day by 2035.
The NPC report is available online at http://www.npc.org/.
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