ANWR & NPR-A: guessing at reserves.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: OIL & GAS - Geographic overview

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In far northern Alaska, the Brooks Range, with its jagged and craggy ridges, seems to end abruptly on its northern side. Looking down from the air one thinks of an ancient coastline, which, actually, it is. Steep ridges give way to gently rolling tundra hills that flatten gradually to a level plain stretching miles to the north to the shore of the Beaufort Sea, pockmarked with tundra lakes.

This is the North Slope, famous for being oil country, as well as for its pristine wilderness, wildlife and even austere beauty. Most Alaskans don't see a conflict between oil and wilderness but others do, mostly people living outside Alaska.

Geographically the North Slope is really that, a gradual slope of terrain from the northern edge of the mountains to sea level. In cons past the seabed lifted, forming the landform where drillers now work. Microscopic ancient plant life settled on the seabed and, buried over time, formed vast pools of oil and gas that now constitute the large oil fields that help anchor Alaska's economy.

The tale of how the oil fields were found has been often told and it is a story of good science, pluck and perseverance, and luck. It all started a century ago, when government geologists first came to the Arctic and were shown oil seeps by Inupiat people of the region. In what is now the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) the Inupiats were the first oil explorers, seeking out tundra soil that was soaked with oil from the seeps. Cut into wedges of soil and hauled home with dog teams, it proved a good fuel.

Maybe the Inupiats should have kept the seeps a secret. What happened next was the first step in the carving up of the North Slope by outsiders. Following their investigations, the government geologists went home and recommended that a good portion of northern Alaska--23 million acres--be set aside as an oil reserve for the U.S. Navy, which was then converting its ships from coal to oil. In 1923, President Warren Harding created the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 (NPR-4), now NPR-A.

LIMITED DISCOVERIES

It was a good thing, however, that the Navy's fleet never had to really depend on NPR-4 for fuel, because no oil worth developing was ever found, despite great efforts. Now, almost 90 years after the reserve was created, private companies are finally on the cusp of developing and producing oil. This, however, is no Prudhoe Bay.

The Inupiats did get some benefits in the end because the Navy's explorers did find natural gas near Barrow, which is within the petroleum reserve. The discovery was modest in size, not big enough to be...