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Spill: ‘What Went Wrong’

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Your March 30 editorial “What Went Wrong” examines the issues involved in the recent tragic tanker oil spill in Prince William Sound and our future energy security and opposes continued development of the oil and natural gas resources in Alaska. We believe that is an unwise judgment.

Even as the cleanup of the serious and regrettable spill continues, we as a nation need to consider the implications of what this accident should mean for our energy lifeline from that state.

First, the petroleum industry views this accident with the utmost seriousness and is prepared to adopt whatever measures are necessary to attempt to avoid its repetition, and to ensure a response with the greatest possible speed and effectiveness should there be a recurrence.

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Second, we need to keep in focus where our energy supply originates: One-fourth of the oil produced by our country comes from the wells on the North Slope of Alaska--2 million barrels of the 7,986,000 barrels a day that we produce. We get nearly 45% of our petroleum--crude oil and products--from foreign countries, and the amount is likely to increase dramatically if efforts to expand domestic production are blocked. Oil provides us with more than 40% of our energy needs, and relatively little of it is replaceable with alternative forms of energy.

This is not reassuring. We are compelled to consider the future energy picture and the important contribution that Alaska can continue making. We believe that the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has great potential for a large petroleum discovery. It would be most unfortunate if the tanker spill causes Congress to turn aside exploration and development of ANWR.

There is no reason to believe that this tanker accident means that an area like ANWR cannot be explored and developed safely. There is an overwhelming body of scientific, academic and other evidence which shows that the petroleum industry has established a safe record at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope--our largest oil field--just 65 miles away from ANWR.

We should not halt efforts to provide our country with reliable sources of petroleum. That means domestic oil and natural gas production, and the opening of ANWR to permit the nation to draw upon these potentially vast resources for our future energy security.

C.T. SAWYER

Vice President

American Petroleum Institute

Washington, D.C.

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