USGS Finds Nearly 30 Billion Barrels Of Untapped Oil Under Federal Lands

by I. Slav, June 26, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 


The United States is the largest oil and gas producer in the world. It is also experiencing a slowdown in its oil production for a number of reasons, including natural depletion. [emphasis, links added]

The U.S. Geological Survey, however, has just published a study stating that there are almost 30 billion new barrels of untapped oil—under federal lands, no less.

Oil and gas drilling was a contentious topic during the Biden administration. The administration decidedly did not like it and put a serious effort into curbing this drilling as much as the law allowed.

As soon as Donald Trump became president, the tables turned, and drilling on federal lands became very much a desirable direction for federal energy policy to move in, with the president prioritizing affordable energy and higher exports.

Now, the U.S. Geological Survey has thrown its weight behind the American energy dominance idea, reporting an estimated undiscovered oil reserves of 29.4 billion barrels across the country, with the leader being Alaska, with 14.46 billion barrels of untapped oil under federal lands.

New Mexico is next, with 8.925 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, followed by Nevada, with 1.4 billion barrels. Untapped gas reserves on federal lands were estimated at over 391.55 trillion cu ft.

Now, the only question is when these hitherto untapped resources will be tapped.

USGS reports 29.4 billion barrels of untapped oil under U.S. federal lands. Map: USGS

The number of drilling rigs in the U.S. oil patch has been on a steady decline recently, reflecting an extended weakness in international prices. This has now changed, of course, after Israel attacked Iran on June 13, but the industry is in no rush to reverse course for the time being.

The industry is playing it safe, not least because cheap drilling sites are running out—or maybe not, if the USGS assessment of untapped resources is correct.

For years now, the biggest production growth driver of U.S. oil has been the Permian Basin, spanning Texas and New Mexico. The Permian has single-handedly offset declines in several other shale plays and has largely uneventful day-to-day business in conventional fields.

Gardi Sugdub’s ‘Climate Exodus’ Myth: Overcrowding, Not Rising Seas, Drives Relocation

by H. Sterling Burnett, June 27, 2025 in WUWT


Yahoo News recently posted an article from the environmental website The Cool Down claiming that the native residents of the very small Panamanian island, Gardí Sugdub (also known as Cartí Sugdupu), are being forced to flee due to fast rising sea levels swamping the land as a result of climate change. This is false. Sea levels at Gardi Sugdub aren’t rising unusually fast, and the best evidence is that most of the island’s residents are voluntarily abandoning it with government help due to overcrowding and insufficient services and infrastructure on the small island.

Grace Howarth, the author of the article, “Residents forced to flee from ‘disappearing island’ due to heartbreaking crisis: ‘There were no more friends, no more kids playing,’” writes describing the situation there:

Rising sea levels are splitting communities apart in Gardí Sugdub and leaving people behind, possibly in danger.

. . .

One year ago, around 1,200 Indigenous Guna people were transported to the mainland by the Panama government for their safety as ocean waters encroached upon their community.

Climate Realism debunked an earlier article from the BBC making the same claims in February of this year; nothing has changed in the four months since then.

A 485-million-year history of bad science

by W.  Essenbach,  June 27, 2025


A few days ago I published another analysis of mine, called pHony Alarmism. Take a moment to read that if you haven’t, because this is a sequel. Both are about a new study in Science Magazine yclept “A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature”, paywalled, of course.

A short digression. One of the ways I truly benefit from publishing the results of my scientific investigations on the web and interacting with the commenters is that my mistakes don’t last long. When I go off the rails, and notice I didn’t say “if” I go, my mistakes rarely last more than a day before they’re pointed out and I can consider and correct them.

But that’s only one of the ways that it’s beneficial to write for the web and then stick around. Perhaps more importantly, it lets people ask me interesting questions and point out overlooked avenues to investigate.

Here’s an example. In a reply to my post yesterday, I got this …

Jeff Alberts, June 25, 2025 4:26 pm

No graph with the co2 and pH together?

To which I answered …

They’re sampled at different times. I could interpolate both ways. Thought about it, then decided that was enough for one post. Hang on … we know pH is proportional in some sense to the log of the CO2. Give me a minute …

In a bit I came back to say:

…well, of course it takes more than a minute but most interesting.

Looks like that will be the subject of my next post. Stay tuned.

w.

This is that next post. End of digression.

One of the reasons that I didn’t look at graphing pH versus CO2 was that I was given to understand that the procedure for calculating the pH was very complex. The paper says (or at least the Supplementary Information (PDF) says, the paper is paywalled:

4.3 Estimating the temporal variability of pHsw [pH of saltwater]