By Naveen Athrappully

Alaska’s North Slope region could contain 96 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered and technically recoverable natural gas resources, according to a new government estimate.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) found that there is nearly triple the 35 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves in the area, the Department of the Interior announced on Oct. 21.

The estimated 96 trillion cubic feet of gas is enough to meet nearly three years of the United States’ consumption, based on numbers cited by the Energy Information Administration.

“Alaska’s natural gas reserves can supply affordable, reliable, secure energy to Americans and our South Pacific allies for generations,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement. “This assessment helps underscore the importance of understanding these vast resources beneath the North Slope and using world-class American science to turn that potential into opportunity.”

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Andrea Travnicek said the North Slope assessment supports President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order—Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.

In the order, Trump highlighted Alaska’s abundant but untapped supply of natural resources, including energy, but noted the development of these resources were impeded by restrictions imposed on resource development on Alaskan lands.

“It is, therefore, imperative to immediately reverse the punitive restrictions implemented by the previous administration that specifically target resource development on both State and Federal lands in Alaska,” his order states.

In November last year, the Department of the Interior announced a final rule that rescinded Biden-era measures that restricted drilling activities in the North Slope’s National Petroleum Reserve.

The North Slope is also critical for the Alaska LNG project, which aims to transport natural gas from the region through a roughly 800-mile pipeline to an export terminal in Alaska’s Nikiski, where it would be cooled and transported in liquid form overseas.

New Energy Resources, Pipeline Infrastructure

The USGS’s latest assessment is just one of multiple oil and gas discoveries and new resource estimates across the United States announced this year.

In January, the USGS announced that it has assessed the Woodford and Barnett shales in the Permian Basin, estimating it contains a “technically recoverable” 1.6 billion barrels of oil and 28.3 trillion cubic feet of gas.

On April 9, Chevron said it had confirmed an oil discovery in the Gulf of America roughly 125 miles south of Louisiana’s coast.

And in June, the USGS announced it estimated recoverable resources of 184 billion cubic feet of gas and 12 million barrels of oil in the Buda Limestone of Texas.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is planning to construct a 125-mile natural gas pipeline from the drilling fields in Pennsylvania to New York.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement that despite an abundant supply of low-cost natural gas in the United States, tens of millions of Americans had limited access to it due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure.

Critics call the pipeline unnecessary. Stop the Constitution Pipeline, a coalition of environmental groups, property owners, and local advocates, asked authorities not to allow the project to move forward.

“In spite of all the hype, the Constitution Pipeline cannot lower prices to consumers in either New York City or New England because it cannot provide any additional gas to those markets,” the Coalition said in a statement on its website.

In an Oct. 21 fact sheet, the Energy Department highlighted that New York currently relies on other U.S. states and Canada to meet 85 percent of its total energy requirements.

“Expanding natural gas infrastructure will strengthen fuel availability for electricity generation and home heating, particularly during extreme winter weather and periods of peak demand,” the department said.