The Drilling Debate - Updated

The Charleston Gazette follows up on the recent pronouncements made by some from West Virginia's congressional delegation regarding offshore drilling.

"Offshore drilling accounts for 27 percent of domestic oil production," the article said, citing government data which also shows that "the vast majority of offshore U.S. reserves are already open to leasing by the industry."

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-3rd, "favors legislation he sponsored last week to revoke leases for oil companies that are not diligently developing on those leases," the article said.

U.S. Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd, meanwhile joined President Bush in saying that "For years, Congress has blocked efforts to expand our nation's domestic production of energy offshore and in Alaska, and now we're paying the price at the pump... It's well past time to see that policy reversed."

Update: MetroNews' Talkline hosted by Rahall and Capito (audio links) for a segment on the drilling issue.

Also... The latest assessment estimates the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska would yield as much as 330 million barrels of oil annually during a 13-year (2018-2030) production period. That report also offers a "low resource" projection of 146 million barrels and a mean scenario of 200 million barrels.

When compared to current U.S. import levels, each scenario would rank ANWR somewhere between Nigeria (367 million barrel average) and Algeria (176m ave) as a source of oil, according to 2002-2007 figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Those figures show annual imports from Saudi Arabia averaged 570 million barrels during that time. That country's 2007 figure was 543 million barrels .