energy policy and conservation act phase two inventory

EPCA Phase II Report

Press Release | Comparison Table (PDF) | Qs and As (PDF)

This report, titled Scientific Inventory of Onshore Federal Lands' Oil and Gas Resources and the Extent and Nature of Restrictions or Impediments to Their Development — Phase II Cumulative Inventory, supersedes Phase I of the inventory. The report includes:

  • All five of the areas covered by the initial release of the inventory in 2003 (Paradox/San Juan, Uinta-Piceance, Greater Green River, and Powder River Basins and the Montana Thrust Belt)
  • Six additional areas: Northern Alaska (the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 1002 area only), the Wyoming Thrust Belt, the Denver, Appalachian, and Black Warrior Basins, and the Florida Peninsula
  • The additional impact of drilling permit conditions of approval, as required by Section 364 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005

These 11 areas encompass 99 million acres of Federal lands and contain an estimated 21 billion barrels of oil and 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or an estimated 76 percent of the oil and gas resources under Federal onshore ownership. The report provides an inventory of the extent and nature of limitations to development of these resources and does not make any policy recommendations in response to its findings.

The EPCA Phase II report is available in low resolution (72dpi) and high resolution (300dpi)
If you would like a DVD of the report, please send your name, address (no P.O. Boxes, please), and phone number to Richard_Watson@blm.gov.

All documents below are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and require the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. Due to the size of the documents, a high speed Internet connection is recommended.

epca phase II cover

Appendices 1 and 2 include a glossary and a list of abbreviations.

 Low Resolution (72dpi)
Full Report (8.8MB) Skip Low Resolution Sections 		High Resolution (300dpi)
Full Report (54MB) Skip Low Resolution Sections
Executive Summary (708KB)
Section 1 (341KB)
Section 2 (2.4MB)
Section 3 (3.2MB)
Section 4 (471KB)
Appendix 1 (187KB)
Appendix 2 (299KB)
Appendix 3 (526KB)
Appendix 4 (478KB)
Appendix 5 (309KB)
Appendix 6 (419KB)
Appendix 7 (1.4MB)
Appendix 8 (831KB)
Appendix 9 (570KB)
Appendix 10 (189KB)
Executive Summary (6.7MB)
Section 1 (989KB)
Section 2 (20.2MB)
Section 3 (24MB)
Section 4 (597KB)
Appendix 1 (184KB)
Appendix 2 (382KB)
Appendix 3 (570KB)
Appendix 4 (937KB)
Appendix 5 (497KB)
Appendix 6 (683KB)
Appendix 7 (1.4MB)
Appendix 8 (2.2MB)
Appendix 9 (536KB)
Appendix 10 (265KB)

Appendix 11 - Federal Oil & Gas Surface Management Prescriptions (744MB .zip format)
This appendix contains the text of stipulations applicable to the Phase II inventory. Note that only the pages of the land use plans that contain stipulations used in the inventory are reproduced. The stipulations used are annotated with an EPCA code, e.g., [EPCA Code: UFSashley003] for a stipulation in the Ashley National Forest. Note also that the various jurisdictions are presented by study area. They are presented only once in the study area in which they dominantly occur even though they may be present in more than one.

Text-only PDF versions of these documents are also available:

GIS Data
(all files below are in .zip format)

Geodatabases (1.3GB)
This zip file contains personal geodatabase files (.mdb), layer files (.lyr), and ArcMap GIS Project files (.mxd) suitable for users of ESRI’s ArcMap GIS. The data for each study area covered in this release are contained in their own geodatabase files and accompanying project files.  The “Basemap Data.mdb” file contains themes common to all eleven of the study areas such as state lines, BLM Field Office jurisdictional boundaries, and National Forest and Grassland boundaries.  Therefore it must accompany any study area files moved or copied to another location.

e00 Files (963MB)
This zip file contains ArcInfo Coverage Export files that can be imported into a number of GIS software systems.  Subfolders are organized by Phase II study area and contain files broken up by Federal agency, agency jurisdictional, or land use planning area.  For example, in the “(1) Northern Alaska” subfolder, the “akanwr.e00” file contains the data for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Detailed Spreadsheets (925KB)
This zip file contains Microsoft Excel files that present a more detailed breakdown of the land access categorization than is contained in the published report.  Various tabs within each file contain tables and charts also found in the report, a quality control evaluation, and breakdowns by Federal agency, agency jurisdictional, or land use planning area.  The last tabs show summary information for BLM lands and National Forests and Grasslands within that particular study area.

EIA Proved Reserves Shapefiles (22.9MB)
This zip file contains a pair of shapefiles for each of the study areas, one showing the oil and gas field outlines cut against federal land ownership (Fedflds) and field outlines for all lands (Grossflds). Four of the original EPCA Phase I basins (Powder River, Green River, Uinta-Piceance, and San Juan/Paradox Basins) are combined into shapefiles named EPCA1_4basins_fed and EPCA1_4basins_gross. These shapefiles are the result of the procedures detailed in Appendix 8 of the report.

If you would like a DVD of the GIS data for EPCA Phase II, please send your name, address (no P.O. Boxes, please), and phone number to Richard_Watson@blm.gov.

EPCA Phase I Report

This version has been superseded by the above Phase II release. However, for reference purposes and for those interested in its historical antecedent, the original Phase I release of January 2003 can be found here.

Last updated: 06/15/11

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management