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A dogsled team carries tourists down the frozen Torne River in Jukkasjarvi, above the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden, December 24, 2006.
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The Arctic Circle holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil, enough supply to meet current world demand for almost three years, the US Geological Survey forecast on Wednesday.
The government agency also said the area could contain 1,670 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas.
"Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what's out there," said USGS Director Mark Myers.
"With this assessment, we're providing the same information to everyone in the world so that the global community can make those difficult decisions," he said.
Frank O'Donnell, president of the nonprofit group Clean Air Watch, said not only do polar bears and other wildlife within the Arctic Circle face losing their habitat due to global warming, they would be hurt by companies searching for oil.
The 90 billion barrels of oil expected to be in the Arctic could meet current world oil demand of 86.4 million barrels a day for almost three years.
The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids, the agency said in the first publicly available petroleum resource estimate of the Arctic Circle.
More than half of the undiscovered oil resources are estimated to occur in just three geologic provinces: Arctic Alaska (30 billion barrels), the Amerasia Basin (9.7 billion barrels) and the East Greenland Rift Basins (8.9 billion barrels).
More than 70 percent of the undiscovered natural gas is likely to be in three provinces: the West Siberian Basin (651 Tcf), the East Barents Basins (318 Tcf) and Arctic Alaska (221 Tcf), the USGS said.
Energy companies have already found more than 400 oil and gas fields north of the Arctic Circle.
The discovered fields account for approximately 40 billion barrels of oil, more than 1,100 Tcf of gas and 8.5 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.
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(Agencies)
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美國地質(zhì)勘探局于本周三發(fā)布報告稱，目前北極圈內(nèi)可開采石油儲量預計為900億桶，可滿足全球近三年的石油需求量。
另外，據(jù)該政府機構(gòu)介紹，北極圈內(nèi)的天然氣儲量為47萬億立方米。
地質(zhì)勘探局局長馬克?梅爾斯說：“在我們就未來如何使用石油和天然氣以及如何保護瀕危物種、土著居民和地球健康等問題做出決定之前，要知道那里都有些什么。”
“這一估測讓全世界的人們都認識到了目前的形勢，所以大家可以一起來做那些艱難的決定。”
非贏利組織“潔凈空氣觀察”主席弗蘭克?奧?多尼爾說，如今，北極圈內(nèi)的極地熊和其它野生動物不僅因全球變暖正面臨無處棲息的危險，還會因石油企業(yè)的瘋狂開采而受到威脅。。
北極圈內(nèi)近900億桶的石油儲量預計可滿足全球近三年的需求，目前全球石油的日需求量為8640萬桶。
地質(zhì)勘探局稱，目前北極地區(qū)未探明的石油儲量占全球儲量的30%，未探明的天然氣儲量占30%，液態(tài)天然氣占20%。這是該機構(gòu)首次發(fā)布有關(guān)北極圈內(nèi)可用油氣資源的勘測報告。
報告顯示，北極地區(qū)超過一半的未探明石油資源主要集中在三個區(qū)域，分別是阿拉斯加區(qū)（300億桶）、美亞海盆地區(qū)（97億桶）和東格陵蘭斷裂盆地區(qū)（89億桶）。
另外，北極圈超過70％的未勘明天然氣儲量也集中在三個區(qū)域，分別是西伯利亞盆地區(qū)（18萬億立方米）、東巴倫支海盆地區(qū)（9萬億立方米）與阿拉斯加北極區(qū)（6.25萬億立方米）。
一些石油開采公司已在北極圈北部地區(qū)發(fā)現(xiàn)了400多個油氣田。
在這些已探明的資源中，石油儲量約為400億桶，天然氣儲量為31萬億立方米，液態(tài)天然氣占850億桶。
（英語點津姍姍編輯）
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