The new policy that has been established in the White House is being characterized by constant opinion changes and the generation of economic uncertainty. However, inside this chaos there is something that seems to be very clear and that is a firm decision: Donald Trump and his advisors are going to to pave the land so that US oil goes out to the surface in the form of merchant barrels. Within that strategy there is a region that Trump wants to become the great US oil site: Alaska. Although experts believe that this will not be simple, in recent days there have been two events that are ‘heating’ this theory: a new discovery of oil and the forecast of the first increase in production in a decade. Someone at the White House is already being clear.
While the Permica basin, located between Texas and New Mexico, is the great source of US oil production, Alaska is the last border of the American crude. There are great estimates (billions of oil barrels) of without exploring oil and areas that are still being drilled that could extend US oil life. Good proof of this has been the Discovery announced this week: The APA firm and its partners have revealed a significant oil discovery in the LagniaPpe area, east of Prudhoe Bay, on the northern aspect (North Slope) of Alaska, as can be seen from the firm’s statement. About 3,270 meters have been drilled in the SOCKEYE POZO And “a high quality site has been” found with approximately a 7.6 meter oil column in a sand in the form of Paleocene blocks, with an average porosity of 20%, “said APA, based in Houston, Texas.
“Compared to the analogous deposits of the Brookiana zone (Brooks mountain range), Porosity and permeability are better than expectedand the permeability will be confirmed by means of a planned flow test, “according to the oil and gas exploration and production company.” Additional potential production areas were also found in the Staines Tongue formation, more brief. “The Sockeye prospect has amplitude support in an extension of between 10,000 and 12,000 hectares and confirms the geological and geophysical models made by other firms.
However, “the Sockeye-2 well further demonstrates the potential of the deposit, presenting An exciting opportunity In an active area of North Slope with an important existing infrastructure, “says Bill Armstrong, executive director of Armstrong Oil & Gas in statements to the specialized press.
A great treasure without exploring
If the crude continues to demand intensely in the future, Alaska and the US federal soil will be Object of new perforations To extract a very profitable resource (currently, recoverable reserves in the US reach 48,000 million barrels, but Alaska’s potential alone is 50,000 million barrels if their reservations were allowed to exploit). However, in the short term the impact will be limited, since this requires a high investment and with the current price of crude some of these investments are not attractive. In spite of everything, analysts such as Economics Capital hope that American crude oil will continue to increase, “although advances in horizontal drilling techniques allow it to be necessary without necessarily investing in more perforations.”
EIA (Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy) already provides for an increase in heat production of this greater investment. In an analysis published this Wednesday, the federal agency predicts that Alaska’s crude oil production will grow in 2026 for the first time since 2017. In its short -term energy panorama of March 2025, the government agency estimates that the production of crude oil in Alaska will increase by 16,000 barrels per day (B/D) in 2026, reaching 438,000 b California.
The administration expects two of the new oil projects in Alaska – the Nuna and Pikka projects, both in the North Slope – boost the production of crude oil in the state after decades of decline. If specified, this annual increase in production will be the first since 2017 and The Major since 2002highlights the EIA. “We anticipate that the annual production of crude oil in Alaska will be located at an average of 422,000 b/d in 2025, which means an annual increase of 1,000 b/d, compared to the average annual decrease of 9,000 b/d of the previous five-year period (2020-24). The decrease in the production of existing wells is compensated with the added production of the project Nuna “, Rubricates the report. The important Conocophillips oil company, which produced the first oil of the Nuna project in December 2024, hopes that the 29 wells of the Nuna project will produce a total of 20,000 b/d oil at its peak.
At the same time, EIA officials stand out, the additional production of phase 1 of the development project Pikka It promotes this forecast to increase production in 2026. The Pikka project, a joint property of Santos and Repsol, is one of Alaska’s most important oil developments in recent years. At the high point of the project, companies plan to produce 80,000 b/dating 45 wells. “We have already completed 80% of phase 1 of our Pikka project. The installation of the pipeline advances at a good pace and will be completed in two winter seasons, which places us in a good position to accelerate the obtaining of the first oil towards the end of 2025,” Santos celebrated in the recent statement in which the discovery in the LagniaPPE area revealed.
Until December 2024, 22% of the wells of the Nuna and Pikka projects had been drilled, according to companies and the Alaska Petroleum and Gas Conservation Commission. Companies plan to drill another 58 wells Until 2028, which would mean a relatively high activity of the platforms, they explain from the US administration.
Alaska is the last border
Alaska, known as the last US border, keeps an energy treasure under its surface that could change the country’s oil scene. Since it was Buy from the Russian Empire in 1867Alaska has been both source of wealth and the scenario of intense debates. Now, with the recent Trump administration measures that eliminate key restrictions for oil extraction, the USA most depopulated in the United States prepares for a new era of energy exploration and development.
The subsoil of this territory hides, Com Ose referred to before, about 50,000 million barrels of technically recoverable oils and around 132 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to data from the Arctic Institute. Only the maritime regions of the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea concentrate approximately 23,000 million barrels. This potential makes Alaska a Key piece for US energy self -sufficiency. “The Arctic has been considered the last energy border of the world, and Alaska is its entrance door,” says the report.
Most of the remaining resources are found in federal lands and coastal areas to which access has been difficult or blocked, either by federal policies, environmental litigation or a complex regulatory regime and constantly change. During the administration of Barack Obamathey were implemented strict environmental restrictionsincluding a drilling ban on 115 million federal waters in the seas of Beaufort and Chukchi. The exploration in the “1002” of the ANWR, which houses an estimate of 7.7 billion barrels of technically recoverable oils. These policies intended to protect the biodiversity of the region, but also limited economic development. “Alaska’s richness was trapped under their own feet,” criticized pro-competition sectors for years.
Alaska’s oil development began strongly in 1968 after the discovery of Prudhoe Bay field, in the north of the state. But it is a reality that Alaska production has been in a long -term decreasing trend since reached its maximum point in 1988when the State represented 25% of US internal production. Oil production in the region has fallen approximately 75% since it reached a peak of more than two million barrels per day in 1988, according to data collected by Resource Development Council, a Alaska business association. In that context, the turn that is taking place, coinciding with Trump’s return to power, has a highly symbolic value.
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