Will drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge have any real impact on the price of oil and gas ?

Apparently, the answer is no:

ANWR is estimated to be able to produce two million barrels of oil a day. Since America uses about 20 million barrels a day that a pretty impressive amount. The problem is that that the Alaskan pipeline can only transport 2.1 million barrels a day and its already moving an average of 650k barrels a day which means its remaining capacity for carrying oil produced from drilling at ANWR would be 1,450,000 barrels on average. Thats still a good bit. However the problem is that since crude oil’s price is set by a world wide market that currently consumes roughly 90 million barrels a day. So even if all of ANWR’s oil is used only by Americans (say through a clause in the drilling rights lease) then it would only offset an equivalent amount of imported oil (a good thing) however it would only represent a 1.6 percent increase in global supply thereby resulting in an equal price drop. With gas currently at four dollars a gallon that would only equal a 6.4 cent per gallon decrease in prices.

Remember that the next time a politician tells you that drilling in ANWR is the solution.

H/T: The Moderate Voice