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Analysis of Comparative Petroleum Type Dominance

All 10 plays each have estimated volumes of oil, gas, and natural gas liquid (NGL). The volume of oil is much greater than the volumes of gas or NGL in each of these plays. For team e, however, it would be useful to know which types of hydrocarbons are relatively dominant in each play when compared to volumes in every other play. The spreadsheet operations are self explanatory. Each type is relativistically compared to the average among the plays, and from that ratio is the factor by which that resource is dominant compared to other plays. Also included is a brief description of what this factor means qualatatively for each play.
Spreadsheet .xls
Spreadsheet .html
The final play summaries, which include a brief description of the hydrocarbon types using this data, can be found on Team 1's site under research>>play summary.

Play Overlay Animation

I hope this animation will be useful in showing the locations of the USGS report plays in the 1002 area. It should be a guide for the detailed information given in the report's p110.pdf. I made it just by overlaying the play maps in the assessment overview.
Open Play Overlay Animation (New Window)

Research Summary for 10/8/03

The report I studied and summarized below is available from http://wwwdggs.dnr.state.ak.us/scan1/pr/text/PR090.PDF.

The Department of Natural Resources' "Resource Appraisal Simulation for Petroleum in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," although reported in 1986, is still valid to this date because the geologic factors are virtually the same. This assessment simulation was the product of an agreement with the Department of the Interior to share analysis and data regarding the geophysics of ANWR. The assessment simulated the geophysical aspects of the 1002 area of ANWR, as shown on the map. The method used to simulate the geophysics of the assessment area was to divide up the area into small pieces called "plays" and judge the individual probabilites of each play with respect to three different criteria.
The first criteria concerned the geologic characteristics that are common to the every aspect of the play area. These characteristics are existence of a source of petroleum, presence of reservoir rocks, favorable timing, and potential migration paths for the petroleum. If these characteristics suggest a high probability of the availability of petroleum, then that play is given a high fractile rating.
The second criteria for simulation concerns geologic characteristics that are unique to prospects within each play. These 3 characteristics are the trapping mechanism (how much the petroleum is restricted from flowing), the porosity (how much void space is between pockets of petroleum), and hydrocarbon accumulation (how easily it can migrate.) A judgement is made regarding the probability of petroleum based on these 3 characteristics of individual prospects.
The third criteria involves the geologic factors that determine the size and shape of the reservoir. These factors are area of closure, reservoir thickness, effective porosity, trap fill, reservoir depth, reservoir lithology, and hydrocarbon mix. The probability assigned to these factors regards the reservoir itself.
The result of this geophysical simulation of plays are estimates and probabilites. For example, according to this simulation, there is a 95% chance of recovering 80 million barrels of oil, and there is a 5% chance of recovering 26.5 billion barrels of oil. The merits of this type of simulation are that it provides a direct assessment with probabilites, there is sufficient detail, explicit detection of resources is not needed, and the recognition of regional trends can be used to correlate probabilities for other plays.

USGS 1002 Area Report

The online report is downloadable in PDF form. At the bottom of the report page is a link to access the raw data tables, which are especially useful for our team, as we are striving to compile our own research. At the bottom of this page you will find links to download the well data files, some of which are in text files and some in Excel spreadsheets. Also available are streamwater analysis data and other exploration data. This being a comprehensive report, there will be more of my own research here soon.
Go to the report

Ancient ANWR Article

Why is there reason to believe the hydrocarbon potential of ANWR is greater than zero, before exploration was done? This article gives a little insight into the geology of ANWR.
Go to the article

Opposing Views

The irony about these two articles which offer differing ideas about cost/benefit of drilling in ANWR is that they are both correct. The points that are made in each are valid, but the jump to two different conclusions from the same facts is where the dilema arises.
Go to Pro-production article
Go to anti-production article

My Perspective

The single greatest piece of insight I've gained in my research thus far is that both advocates and opponents of drilling seek to minimalize the negative effects of their proposed course of action. Minimalizing the effects serves to downplay the importance of the decision and makes it seem like there are no widespread of grave dangers associated with either option. For example, advocates of drilling focus on how little the environment would be affected, and opponents of drilling emphasize how unimportant the oil beneath ANWR would be to the world in the long-term. Of these minimal effects, I find that drilling has more negative effects than does not drilling, so I support not drilling. A few of the arguments for drilling that minimalize the negative effects are: only the 1002 Area is directly affected, exploration technology that doesn't gouge the terrain could be used exclusively, gravel drilling pads and angled drilling reduces the footprint of production, and it is questionable based on prior drilling if the migratory and non-migratory species are affected to any extent. Those opposed to drilling minimalize the negative effects by expressing that it is short-sighted and trivial in the grander scheme of things to sacrifice ANWR to any degree for a few million barrels of oil. The world oil production would not be affected by recovering the oil beneath ANWR. It will only be a tiny blip on the petroleum reserve graph that will not even help our economy, and it certainly won't solve any problems. It is a destructive means to no end. So it is easy to become convinced the effects are subtle, whether it is the minimal impact on the environment or the minimal impact the oil would have on the world. The long-term advantages of not drilling at all outweigh the long term advantages of drilling, even though both effects are maybe less drastic than perceived.