Note: 10.36 Billion is not the total sum of oil expected in the ground. It is the mean value of the technically recoverable oil based on technology that is already being improved.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.pdf
Thanks for the reference URL. I had visited this site last year. Notice in my original comments I said nothing of how much expected oil could be extracted over time. My last comments bear out in simple terms that the total extraction of oil at area 2002, over the expected life, simply is not an significant amount of oil compared to the daily US needs. That is all I was trying to bring out. Perhaps my grammer did not bring out the point I strived to communicate. At any rate, like I say, I am all for the drilling to take place.