U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, our newest lawyer-turned-petroleum-geologist, is critical of the Brazil policy of another would-be geologist lawyer, President Obama ("There's oil here at home, but Obama would go abroad," April 26). But Obama's motive in offering to help Brazil "develop these oil reserves" is to gain profitable business for the U.S. oil and oil-services industries.
Brazil's offshore Santos Basin holds the world's largest oil discovery in more than a decade. The business opportunity for U.S. petroleum technology is substantial.
Bachmann continues to go astray discussing U.S. oil reserves. The best estimates of economically recoverable oil from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge range up to about 6 billion barrels.
That's one year of U.S. usage, not 30 to 50 years, as Bachmann claimed. And ANWR oil is likely to be natural-gas-rich, like the adjacent Point Thompson discovery.
That oil can't be produced because we have no pipeline for the gas.
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