Mr. Erik Milito - The House Committee on Natural Resources ...

January 2012
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OIL AND NATURAL GAS IN THE WEST:
Understanding the Role of Federal Lands
For more than a hundred years, the West’s oil and natural gas reserves have played a significant role in helping America
meets its domestic energy needs. Recent advances in drilling technologies, which have made a significant amount of
oil and gas resources buried deep below the earth’s surface economically and technologically recoverable, will serve to
greatly expand the influence of the West in America’s domestic energy portfolio in the decades ahead.
According to a recent report from the Western Energy Alliance 1 , the energy producing states in the western U.S. have the
combined capacity to produce more energy from oil and natural gas than the total U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Kuwait, Venezuela, Colombia, Algeria, Nigeria and Russia combined by 2020. Specifically, Western Energy Alliance found
that the West has the capacity to generate 1.3 million barrels of domestic oil and condensate production a day by the
year 2020, an amount that currently exceeds daily oil imports from Russia, Iraq and Kuwait combined. <strong>The</strong> West also has
the potential to produce 6.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually by 2020.
When it comes to America’s energy security, the West is important.
Much of the oil and natural gas in the West is produced from public lands owned and managed by the federal
government. While the vast preponderance of onshore oil and gas production in other regions takes place on private
lands, many of the West’s most vital energy plays are found on federal lands – usually, those managed by the Bureau of
Land Management (BLM). Put simply, a robust and thriving domestic energy program in the energy-producing states of
the American West is not possible without access to and production of the West’s federal land resources.
Federal lands play a central role in driving overall natural gas production trends in the West. Approximately 40% of
all natural gas production from western energy-producing states occurs on BLM lands. 2 This percentage has recently
declined. In 2010, natural gas production on federal lands decreased while production growth from non-federal resources
has experienced incremental growth. See Figure 1. In 2009, federal natural gas production decreased by 197 billion
cubic feet compared to the 2008 level. See Table 1.
1. <strong>The</strong> Blueprint for Western Energy Prosperity, (2011). Western Energy Alliance.
2. As of 2009. Source: EIA Natural Gas Production Statistics (2010), BLM Oil and Gas Statistics (2011)
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