U.S. Oil-Reserve Estimates May Be Low, Report Says

Oil reserves in the United States could be dramatically greater than previously estimated, according to a Department of Energy report released Wednesday.

From 99 billion to 204 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil could still be found, according to the report. The estimates vary depending on what price the oil would sell for and whether current or advanced technologies are used in the recovery process.

The Energy Department has most recently estimated 24.7 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Proven reserves are a more conservative measurement of available oil.

The study will likely become ammunition in efforts by the Bush Administration, the Alaskan state government and the oil industry to open the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve and other off-limits areas to oil exploration.

About half the possible reserves represent oil expected to be in the Alaskan preserve and the outer Continental Shelf, where drilling is now banned. The other half would be recovered using enhanced oil recovery techniques, said the report, prepared by representatives of various federal agencies, the oil industry and state geological survey agencies.

“I think it may shock people who thought that the U.S. oil industry is in terminal decline,” said Ken Haley, manager of energy forecasting at Chevron Corp. “The question is, if there’s a lot left to do here, can we get permission to do it?”

Other oil observers said the study is less significant than it would have been previously, before cheaper sources of oil were found outside the United States.

“The problem for the next 10 years is not where to find oil but where to find consumers, especially if carbon taxes are imposed,” said Philip K. Verleger Jr., an energy economist at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think-tank. “I don’t want to say that the fact that there is that much oil out there is unimportant, but it would have been much more important 10 years ago.”