Pombo Applauds Bodman's 'Unconventional' Effort

Pombo Applauds Bodman's ‘Unconventional' Effort

Washington , DC - House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) praised Secretary Samuel Bodman and the U.S. Department of Energy research and development for pledging more than $15 million this week to fund research and development projects focused on recovering large, unconventional oil and natural gas resources.

"For the foreseeable future, U.S. energy security will hinge upon our ability to increase production of both conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources right here at home," Chairman Pombo said. "Secretary Bodman is to be commended for this R&D initiative especially, as it focuses on achieving higher energy yields in the most environmentally-sensitive fashion possible."

According to the Clinton Administration's 1999 marquee energy report Environmental Benefits of Advanced Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Technology, advanced technologies have made America the cleanest energy producer in the world. The report offers detailed analyses on the use of technology as an environmental benefit in exploration, drilling and completion, production, site restoration, and protection of sensitive areas. According to the report, advanced technologies in the energy industry led to reduced energy consumption, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, better protection of water resources and wildlife habitat and increased worker safety.

"We need to deploy advanced technologies to make America's unconventional resources of today the conventional sources of the future," Pombo continued. "These research and development programs will make a difference in achieving that goal and dispelling the myth that energy production and environmental concerns are mutually exclusive. We can produce more energy at home in an environmentally-friendly way. For the sake of our economy and American families, we must do exactly that."

Recognizing that unconventional resources will be tomorrow's reality, in 2005 alone Pombo has encouraged the most-environmentally sensitive production of both conventional and unconventional resources.

* Arctic technology greatly advanced in the past 30 years, increasing environmental safety by requiring fewer wells. Directional and multi-lateral exploration enables producers to reach multiple sources of energy in ANWR miles away from the exploration site, reducing the production footprint to less than 2,000 acres. With today's technology, one small production pad placed on the White House lawn could reach and produce oil from a reserve under Brookmont, Maryland, more than 6 miles away.
* Pombo included measures in the Energy Policy Act to encourage the technologically difficult production of ultra-deep natural gas in the small portion of the Gulf of Mexico where gas production is currently permitted, while allowing limitations on incentives based on market price. Thanks to incentives such as those in this year's Act, deep water production has more than doubled its output.
* The Act also contained measures to develop the 2 trillion barrels of oil in America's oil shale, a rock that produces oil when heated. America is considered the Saudi Arabia of oil shale, and research and development programs in the private sector, with assistance from DOE, lead to technological advancements in the last 30 years that make tapping this resource a reality now more than ever.

The Clinton Administration highlighted the importance and environmental feasibility of recovering these unconventional resources in its report more than five years ago. "With our easily recoverable reserves largely depleted, it would be logical to expect resource development opportunities in the United States, relative to the rest of the world, to continue to diminish. In fact, quite the opposite has been the case," the report states. "Advanced technologies have been behind the logic-defying trends in exploration and production, allowing economic access to domestic resources that are concentrated in deeper formations, tighter zones, deeper water, more sensitive environments and increasingly more unconventional settings."

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/Press/releases/2005/1018unconventional.htm