Oil and Gas

[84]  Technically recoverable resources are resources in accumulations producible using current recovery technology but without reference to economic profitability. 

[85] Proved reserves are the estimated quantities that analysis of geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. 

[86]  Inferred reserves are that part of expected ultimate recovery from known fields in excess of cumulative production plus current reserves. 

[87] Undiscovered resources are located outside oil and gas fields in which the presence of resources has been confirmed by exploratory drilling; they include resources from undiscovered pools within confirmed fields when they occur as unrelated accumulations controlled by distinctly separate structural features or stratigraphic conditions. 

[88] Donald L. Gautier and others, U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 1995 National Assessment of the United States Oil and Gas Resources, (Washington, D.C., 1995); U.S. Department of Interior, Minerals Management Service, an Assessment of the Undiscovered Hydrocarbon Potential of the Nation’s Outer Continental Shelf, OGS Report MMS 96-0034 (June 1996); and 2003 estimates of conventionally recoverable hydrocarbon resources of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf as of January 1, 2003. 

[89]   Source: Noyes Data Corporation, Oil Shale Technical Data Handbook, edited by Perry Nowacki, Park Ridge, New Jersey, 1981, pages 89-97.  The Paraho Oil Shale Project design had a maximum production rate of 100,000 syncrude barrels per day, which is used in the OSSS as the standard oil shale facility size. 

[90]  U.S. Geological Survey, 2002 Petroleum Resource Assessment of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA):  Play Maps and Technically Recoverable Resource Estimates, Open- File Report 02-207 (May 2002). 

Notes and Sources for Table 51 

Note:  Resources in areas where drilling is officially prohibited are not included in this table.  Also, the Associated-Dissolved Gas and the Alaska values are not explicitly utilized in the OGSM, but are included here to complete the table.  The Alaska value does not include stranded Arctic gas. 

Source:  Onshore, State Offshore, and Alaska - U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) with adjustments to Unconventional Gas Recovery resources by Advanced Resources, International; Federal (Outer Continental Shelf) Offshore - Minerals Management Service (MMS); Proved Reserves -- EIA,  Office of Oil and Gas. Table values reflect removal of intervening reserve additions between the date of the latest available assessment and January 1, 2004.