BLM selects National Petroleum Reserve Alternative B-2; leaves 212 million barrels of oil and 8.6 trillion cubic feet of gas effectively stranded

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced this week the selection of Alternative B-2 for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an alternative that allows leasing on 11.8 of the 22.8 million acres of land in the petroleum reserve. A comparison chart of the alternatives shows Alternative B-2 would allow access to 72% of the reserve's estimated 549 billion barrels of oil and just 50% of the estimated 17.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Alternative B-2 is a modification of the original Alternative B, with slightly more land available for leasing. Alternative B-2 also creates five "Special Protection Areas" totaling more than 13 million acres that would be closed to development, but eliminates the 12 Wild River designations of the original Alternative B.

A press release from Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says that the agency will move forward with Alternative B-2 as the preferred alternative in the development of the final environmental impact statement, scheduled for release in late 2012.

The BLM maintains a website for the project - the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (IAP/EIS) which includes documents and detailed maps.