Resource appraisal of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the William O. Douglas Arctic Wildlife Range

The William O. Douglas Arctic Wildlife Range (WODAWR) covers about 9 million acres in the northeastern corner of Alaska. Questions regarding the future status of the Range, in particular, whether to allow mineral exploration and development, are the subject of much debate and the topic of legislation presently before Congress. The purpose of this report is to present details of the assessment of undiscovered in-place petroleum resources in the Wildlife Range. The play method, used in this study, was also used in the appraisal of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) and is the only assessment method amenable to the economic analysis used in the NPRA 105(b) study (U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1979). This report presents the regional geologic setting of the Wildlife Range, the definition and petroleum geology of each play, play input parameters, a description of the play method, discussion of methodological problems, and computer results of the assessment. Comparison of the results of the play appraisals of the Wildlife Range with NPRA, together with a comparison of the size of the two areas, shows the Wildlife Range to have a larger probable potential resource per square mile than that of NPRA. The estimated oil permore » square mile in the Wildlife Range may be nearly 8 times that in NPRA when the average values are compared, and almost 6 times that in NPRA when the 50th fractiles are compared. The plays in Tertiary rocks, which are absent in NPRA and may contain most of the estimated resource in the Wildlife Range, are the main source of these differences in resource assessments.« less