For a background, i have been supplying acquisition systems and software in the oil well drilling business for over 25 years, so i am pretty familiar with the engineering and the art. I also have many friends in the business in low places.
Seriously, i do have friends well placed in the drilling business and if i find out anymore, i will let the forum know.
During the oil glut of the 80's, I had heard this rumor from a schoolmate's father who worked as a welder on the TAP, as well as others in the drilling sector.
What is claimed is nothing less than the fantastic--that this field's potential is nearly equal to or greater than the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia. A friend with whom i had discussed this stated this was not possible, given the discrepancy in geographical size. I pointed out that the producing formations on the North Slope are similar in nature to Cantarell* field in Mexico, which is comprised of rubble or detritus. In other words, the pore spaces in the reservoir rock are much, much larger, and with far greater permeability, which greatly increases the amount that can be recovered as well as the in situ volume. Also, more than one producing formation blankets nearly all potential fields in the NPRA, so the oil is "stacked". In short, it's geologically possible.
Since the great GoogleBot could pick up on this thread, and possibly add it to the topic search collection, causing Jeff grief with hits on the forum, i will use a convention that should keep this mum to the GGG (Great God Google). A word bracketed in asterisks is spelled backwards, as in *siht*. Sheesh, i wish there was a word processor tool to do this. This seems paranoid, but Digg had 47K hits on this a couple of weeks ago.
If you search youtube for *yesdniL smailliW*, you should find the presentation. It's long and boring. He waves his book around--a lot. And an online version of his book. It's short and boring. First impression is loon. So i pulled up Google Earth and looked for *lluG dnalsI*. Well it was not on the North Slope, but on the Pacific (south) coast of Alaska, a bird sanctuary in Cook Inlet. Now there is oil in Cook Inlet, but it's well developed, and certainly would have shown up on the radar by now. Well, i thought, case closed.
But former Senator Chance's foreward to his book nagged me. Then the search engine showed a mention of this topic in a book about the Flying Tigers by *oeJ rennerB*.
Further map searches on Google, Google Earth revealed nothing, but in the center of Prudhoe Bay is a small island, unnamed on these maps. This had me intrigued. I could find no indication of it on maps from the state of Alaska--everything pointed to the island in Cook Inlet. Finally, on a 12-year old TerraServer map, i hit paydirt (yes, it's a pun). There it was, right where *smailliW* claimed it to be. Looking at a development map (show wells, roads, and flowlines) of the North Slope field from the state of Alaska showed a very curious thing. Prudhoe is now heavily developed, except in this area.
So there are three possibilities:
1. It was tested, but turned out to be like Mukluk, a dud.
2. It has been capped and is a well-kept secret. I find this hard to swallow. Oil companies jealously guard secrets about things like this, but petro geologists love to brag.
3. It is commercial, but not nearly as big as claimed. If development requires arctic ocean drilling, which sucks, the developer will put it off until fiscally attractive.
*The origin of the Cantarell field is fascinating. According the geologists, the reservoir rock is rubble created by the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.
