Milestone of Significance

The giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on the Arctic north slope of Alaska passed a major milestone this month, producing its 5 billionth barrel of crude oil. The first oil was pumped into the trans-Alaska pipeline system 10 years ago this coming June 20. Prudhoe Bay thus becomes the greatest producing oil field in North America. The East Texas field has yielded 4.9 billion barrels since 1930, and will not reach 5 billion until sometime next year.

Prudhoe Bay is expected to produce 5 billion more barrels under existing technology. Experts say that the field’s reservoirs contain an additional 13 billion barrels of products that cannot be recovered by using currently available and economically feasible pumping techniques.

Achieving the midpoint in Prudhoe Bay production has taken on more than just statistical significance. Oil industry officials are using the fact to argue for additional exploration for large fields of petroleum, particularly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain about 100 miles to theeast of Prudhoe Bay, where oil first was discovered by Atlantic Richfield in 1968.

Standard Oil Production President William J. Johnson said, “The U.S. oil and gas industry must look at new areas that hold the potential for large discoveries.” The wildlife refuge is an obvious place to look, he said.

Existing law prohibits exploration and production on the refuge, but the Interior Department is expected to propose this month that the area be opened to the oil companies for leasing. Conservationists are organizing for what Wilderness Society President George Frampton Jr. predicted would be “one of the great land battles of the decade.”

Since Congress must assent before any development can occur, the burden is on industry and the Administration to prove their claims that the refuge is the last best hope for finding another giant oil field and that its development is essential to the nation’s energy future. The evidence will have to be compelling.