Just for fun…this is how the AP describes Brazil’s new oil find:
Last week, Brazil confirmed a monster offshore oil discovery and promising fields near the find, although full-scale extraction is unlikely until 2013 and will be very expensive because it is so far below the surface of the earth. State-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said reserves at Tupi field could be up to 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent, and initial production should exceed 100,000 barrels daily, though experts believe that will grow.
The DoE says the “expected” yield from ANWR would be significantly larger, but a quick search of Nexis shows the AP to be somewhat less enthusiastic about what they might otherwise describe as a mega-monster field. Here’s the AP in May 2005 on ANWR:
barely more oil than the U.S. now consumes in a year.
As Brazil talks about becoming a net exporter of oil, and joining OPEC, the United States has even larger fields–so large they might replace entirely the amount of oil we import from Saudi Arabia–sitting untapped for fear of disturbing the caribou.
