EPCA Phase III Inventory

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

National



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Section 604 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 2000, as amended by Section 364 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, required an inventory of all onshore Federal lands to identify:

the United States Geological Survey estimates of the oil and gas resources underlying these lands; and
the extent and nature of any restrictions or impediments to the development of the resources…”

EPCA required the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy, to provide the inventory to Congress. The Secretary of the Interior designated the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to lead the effort. That inventory, now referred to as EPCA Phase I, was released in January 2003. Phase II was released in November 2006.

This report, titled Inventory of Onshore Federal Oil and Natural Gas Resources and Restrictions to Their Development, supersedes Phase II of the inventory. The report includes:

All onshore Federal lands within the United States
The areas covered in detail by the Phase II inventory of 2006 have been updated where needed (Northern Alaska, the Paradox, San Juan, Uinta-Piceance, Powder River, Denver, Black Warrior and Appalachian Basins, Southwestern Wyoming [previously referred to as the Greater Green River Basin], the Montana and Wyoming Thrust Belts and the Florida Peninsula)
Six additional areas are analyzed in detail (Central and Southern Alaska, Eastern Oregon-Washington, and the Ventura, Williston, and Eastern Great Basins)
The accessibility of the remaining onshore Federal lands of the United States have been extrapolated from the results of the detailed study areas. The EPCA Phase III Inventory therefore represents the first truly national assessment of the restrictions and impediments to oil and gas exploration and development.

EPCA Phase III Inventory

The results show that 279 million acres of Federal lands are within areas mapped as having oil and natural gas potential. These lands contain an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The report provides an inventory of the extent and nature of limitations to development of these resources and does not make any policy recommendations in response to its findings.

The EPCA Phase III report is available for download in a variety of versions: PDF Text Only, PDF low resolution (72dpi) and PDF high resolution (300dpi).

All documents below are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and require the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. Due to the size of the documents, a high speed Internet connection is recommended for all downloads except the PDF Text-Only (no charts or graphs). The file sizes of each section are indicated. Click on the links to download.

If you would like a DVD of the report, please send your name, address (no P.O. Boxes, please), and phone number to Richard_Watson@blm.gov.

Section
Text Only PDF
(no charts or graphs)
Low Resolution PDF
(72 dpi)
High Resolution PDF
(300 dpi)
Full Report n/a 23.8 MB 109.4 MB
Table of Contents & Executive Summary 131 KB 1.4 MB 13.4 MB
Section 1 - Introduction 75 KB 550 KB 1.1 MB
Section 2 - Methodology 119 KB 8.4 MB 42.6 MB
Section 3 - Results 92 KB 10.5 MB 42.6 MB
Section 4 - Additional Federal Land Access Issues 28 KB 1.8 MB 614 KB
Appendix 1 - Acronyms & Abbreviations 16 KB 1.4 MB 109 KB
Appendix 2 - Glossary of Terms 48 KB 1.4 MB 206 KB
Appendix 3 - Federal Land Status Preparation 30 KB 1.7 MB 395 KB
Appendix 4 - Federal Oil & Gas Lease Stipulation Data Preparation 28 KB 1.6 MB 614 KB
Appendix 5 - APD Conditions of Approval Data Preparation 21 KB 984 KB 1.0 MB
Appendix 6 - U.S. Geological Survey Assessment of Undiscovered Oil & Gas Resources 37 KB 964 KB 1.2 MB
Appendix 7 - Initial Estimates of Remaining Proved Ultimate Recovery 29 KB 1.1 MB 532 KB
Appendix 8 - Proved Reserves Estimation and Field Boundary Construction 83 KB 2.0 MB 3.7 MB
Appendix 9 - GIS Methodology 45 KB 1.5 MB 1.4 MB
Appendix 10 - Federal Land Use Planning Documents used for the Phase III Inventory 23 KB 726 KB 904 KB
Appendix 11 - Federal Oil & Gas Surface Management Prescriptions (see note below)
11 KB
(Intro Only)
n/a n/a

Appendix 11 - Federal Oil & Gas Surface Management Prescriptions (425 MB .zip format)

This appendix contains the text of stipulations applicable to the Phase III Inventory. Note that only the pages of the land use plans that contain stipulations used in the Inventory are reproduced. The stipulations used are annotated with an EPCA code, e.g., [EPCA Code: UFSashley003] for a stipulation in the Ashley National Forest. The stipulations are ordered by number, however; not all numbers may be serial.

Note also that the various jurisdictions are presented by study area. They are presented only once in the study area in which they dominantly occur even though they may be present in more than one.

Previous EPCA Reports

Earlier version have been superseded by the above Phase III release. However, for reference purposes, here are links to earlier EPCA Reports:

EPCA Phase II--November 2006

EPCA Phase I--January 2003