How much oil is off North Carolina's coast?
No one knows for sure, but the Minerals Management Service recently estimated based on exploration done in the 1970s and 1980s that between one half and 3.5 billion barrels of oil lie off the coast of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Not all of that oil would be available under the most likely scenarios, since the states or the federal government could limit offshore drilling within sight of the shoreline. Between one-tenth and seven-tenths of a billion barrels of oil is within 50 miles of shore.
How long would that oil last?
According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. consumers used about 5.5 billion barrels of crude oil and petroleum products in 2007. (See "Refinery and Blender Net Inputs" on this chart. To be exact, subtract "Exports" one column over, though it doesn't make much difference.)
In other words, the oil offshore from North Carolina and its neighboring Atlantic Coast states amounts to between 26 and 231 days' worth of U.S. oil consumption.
Of course, it would mean a huge increase in U.S. drilling.
According to the same chart (see "Field Production"), U.S. production of crude oil in 2007 was 1.8 billion barrels, so the South Atlantic oil amounts to between 79 days and almost two years' worth of current domestic oil production.
Document(s):
southeast-oil.pdf
Comments
Re: How much oil? At most, eight months
September 23, 2008 - 5:33pm — scharrisonAnd we've also been hearing about how the location of petroleum infrastructure (refineries, pipelines, etc.) in North Carolina would bring a lot of good jobs to the economically blighted Eastern part of the state, but the environmental impact would make the OLF seem like a little girl's tea party in comparison.
First of all, the Pamlico Sound would need to be deeply and almost constantly dredged to allow the transport of crude to these facilities, and whatever critters survived that scourge would be exposed to invasive species like never before. Aside from the environmental impact that would have, some 1,300 (10% of the population) people in Pamlico County alone are involved in the fishing industry...
Okay, so: let's say that idea was rejected and Hampton Roads was used as the port, and the crude was then trucked, railed or piped(?) down to the new refineries in North Carolina. While some of the crews running these plants will be drawn from the local labor pool, most of the management and tech positions will be already-trained, out-of-state workers. Now comes the really bad part: these refineries emit over three times as many chemicals as a coal plant, including lead, PM10, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, benzene, hydrogen flouride, methane, chlorine, etc., etc. Into the air, into the ground, into the water.
I know Eastern North Carolina residents would love to catch up with the central part of the state as far as economic opportunities go, but I'm not sure catching up with us in the pollution category is what they have in mind.