[thackney]

Like I said, barely a dent in worldwide crude prices.

Are you kidding? Do a little comparison.

Developing this tiny sliver of land, which would impact but two thousand acres (the size of a regional airport) of the 20-million acre refuge, could yield up to 16 billion barrels of oil. This would equate to 30 years of Middle East imports, and possibly more.

[NYorkerInHouston]

Well your quoted statement is basically accurate but in needs to be put into perspective.

16 billion barrels of oil (at the 5% confidence interval but certainly possible). Taking the figure for US imports from Saudi Arabia- 1.5 million bbl/day multiplied by days in a year times 30 years gets us to 16.425 billion barrels of oil. So the figures basically work out.

On the other hand US consumption in 2004 was 20.4 million bbl/day, and world consumption was about four times that- 83 million bbl/day with supply at about 84-85 million bbl/day. With those numbers the expected daily output of ANWR at peak (1-1.5 million bbl/day) seems less dramatic.

Not an argument against drilling for I think we should and will drill there but one should be realistic about expected impact.