A Citizen’s Guide

Rep. Mike Kelly, talking about the House’s oil tax proposal, was only the latest of many to point to the decline of North Slope oil production. It’s coming down like a rock, he said, and there’s nothing anyone can do to bring the decline back to zero or cause oil production to increase.

The administration uses the rate of decline to promote its oil tax proposal and its gas pipeline proposal.

BP mentions a 6 percent decline whenever it can and for the same reasons.

For the record then, North Slope oil production has fallen by an average of about 4.5 percent per year between 1988, when production peaked, to 2005, according to the 2006 annual report of the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas.

Between 1999 and 2004, production fell at a rate of about 2.75 percent, and in 2002 it actually went up slightly.

As for the future, the Department of Revenue predicts that production will fall over the next 10 years at an average rate of about 2.5 percent, according to its Spring 2006 Revenue Sources Book.

Just the facts, ma’am.