2. OCS DEVELOPMENT AND POTENTIAL 



The oil industry has expressed interest in the petroleum poten- 

 tial of the OCS off New England since the early 1960s. In response 

 to this interest, the Federal government has issued permits for ex- 

 ploratory seismic and off-structure work in the Georges Bank area. 

 Additionally, it has initiated a call for the nomination of tracts 

 on or near Georges Bank and selected tracts for possible leasing. In 

 the fall of 1976, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management 

 released a draft environmental impact statement and held hearings on 

 the first proposed lease sale, No. 42. 



2.1 Resource Estimates 



Numerous estimates of the amount of recoverable petroleum off the 

 East Coast and on Georges Bank have been made public. These figures 

 vary greatly due to the difficulty of making such estimates. The most 

 probable estimates are those established by the U.S. Geological Survey. 

 As noted in Table 1, the U.S.G.S. (1974) estimates that for the East 

 Coast resource there is a 50%-5% chance of 10-20 billion barrels of 

 oil and 55-110 trillion cu. ft. of gas. For the, North Atlantic re- 

 source, they predict a 50%-5% chance of 0.9-2.4 billion barrels of oil and 

 4.2-12.5 trillion cu. ft. of gas. It should be noted that the estimate 

 (50%-5% chance) for the first sale in the North Atlantic (sale No. 42) 

 are .18-. 65 billion barrels of oil and 1.2-4.3 trillion cu. ft. of gas. 



Despite estimates of how much oil and gas will be found, uncer- 

 tainty will continue to exist over whether oil and gas is even present 

 in commercially exploitable quantity until drilling is well under way. 



