Drilling In The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is going to have a great affect not just on Alaska, but on the rest of the country as well. Drilling has been going on in Alaska for years in the Prudhoe Bay region in the northern part of the state. It has been proposed to begin drilling in ANWR because it has been discovered that there is oil in that region and that would help ease the country’s demand for oil from other countries. In order to make the drilling in ANWR a success, one must first learn the history of oil production in the state of Alaska, how it is transported, learn about the geological factors, and study past disasters so they are not repeated.
In order to understand the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, one must first know some of the background information and the reason for choosing ANWR as the site for drilling. The North Slope of Alaska and Prudhoe bay is where most of the drilling occurs right now. Prudhoe Bay is where the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins. Approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil a day are produced from the Prudhoe Bay area and sent down the pipeline to Valdez, in the southern part of Alaska. The 1.5 million barrels from Prudhoe Bay represent 25% of our domestic production. However, in 1988, Prudhoe Bay reached its peak in oil production and began to decline afterwards. After the beginning of the decline, no new fields were discovered to compensate for the losses.
The 1002 area is an area of ANWR that covers 1.5 million acres. Area 1002 has the Canning and Staines Rivers to the west, the Aichilik River to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the Brooks Range to the south. The western boundary of the 1002 area is about 60 miles east of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) and Prudhoe Bay. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is 19 million acres. 8.9 million acres of A...