US BLM set to begin next phases of domestic energy inventory

Washington (Platts)--23Aug2005

The US Bureau of Land Management is ready to begin the next phases of a
massive, ongoing assessment of energy resources on public lands in the West,
according to an instruction memorandum posted on the agency's Web site
Tuesday. 
     Phases III and IV of the study, which was ordered under the Energy Policy
and Conservation Act of 2000, will examine the area that falls within the
jurisdiction of 25 BLM field offices in Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho,
Montana, the Dakotas, Nevada, Oregon and Utah. Specifically, the memo calls on
officials in those states to assist the agency's Washington headquarters in
gathering data on current restrictions on oil and natural gas leases and
drilling permits. Washington staff will visit the state and field offices in
the second half of this year, but otherwise no schedule for completion of the
phases was provided. 
     The areas covered by the latest study are unlikely to be found as
productive as those in phase I, which determined there are 138.5 Tcf of
technically recoverable gas reserves and 3.9-bil bbl of technically
recoverable oil in five Rocky Mountain basins, and phase II, which examined
the Pinedale and Rawlins field offices in Wyoming and the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, among other areas. 
     EPCA was signed into law by President Clinton in November 2000, and
requires BLM and other agencies to survey federal lands for energy resources,
and to identify any impediments to development of those resources.

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