Rober “Zre performance” Zanib
5/5
The U.S. has experienced rapid change in domestic oil production since 2008, when crude oil production reached a low of 3.98 million bbl per day. Just five years later, the U.S. had nearly doubled its daily production output, with Texas and North Dakota driving much of the growth.1 2 Alaska did not experience the same production boom, with crude oil output steadily declining over the past decade.3 In spite of that downward trend, Alaska remained the fourth largest state producer of crude oil in 2015, and the nation’s largest oil-producing county is Alaska’s North Slope Borough.4
Geology and history
The North Slope Borough is the country’s largest organized local jurisdiction, spanning more than 94,000 square miles north of the Arctic Circle (66th parallel). Its 9,703 residents, most of whom are Inupiat Alaskan Natives, are spread across eight separate communities.5 The northern coast of Alaska was documented as a potential oil-producing region as early as 1900. However, the borough’s government was not formally incorporated until 1972, soon after the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, the largest single oil field in North America.6 7
Oil production increased dramatically in 1977 with the opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which provided an economically viable way to transport large amounts of crude oil from the North Slope to market. In 1994, ARCO identified another significant deposit at the Alpine Field, located on state land east of the Colville River and extending into the federally administered National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. The North Slope’s Prudhoe Bay, Alpine Field, and Kuparuk River constitute the majority of the state of Alaska’s oil production. Today, the borough’s oil reserve base is extensive, with approximately six billion barrels (bbl) of proved oil.8
