Oil: What the drilling advocates say

Supporters say there could be much more oil offshore than the government predicts as they fight for access to new supplies to lower the price of oil.

…”We think the estimates are extremely conservative,” said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that supports more drilling.

Kennedy said the government thought Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay field originally held 6 billion barrels of oil. Since the field began producing in 1977, Kennedy said it has provided about 14 billion barrels of oil.


Other reports have shown the discrepancy between estimated production and actual production in Prudhoe Bay to be smaller, but still it ended up producing more oil than initial projections.

“They have a bit of a weatherman’s track record when it comes to forecasting,” Kennedy said.

CNN