The federal government raised its estimate this week for how much oil and gas could be extracted from public lands in Nevada, placing the state third for oil potential.
Nevada holds 1.4 billion barrels of “undiscovered” oil beneath its public lands – only falling behind Alaska and New Mexico – and 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas, according to the newly compiled figures released by the U.S. Geological Survey last week.
“We think there’s resource potential there, and it just so happens there’s a lot of federal land,” said Chris Schenk, the lead author of the report.
The estimates are of “technically recoverable oil and gas resources” — many of which may not be economically viable to extract — that could be retrieved with current technologies. It’s the first time the agency has tallied the amount of oil and gas under national parks, wilderness areas and other public lands nationwide since 1998, according to Nevada Current.
Technology has improved significantly since then, increasing the estimated resources that could potentially be extracted from public lands, according to the report.
The analysis was prepared in response to a directive by the Trump administration to “unleash” domestic energy supplies. In February, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed his agencies to identify energy and critical minerals on public lands.
“American Energy Dominance is more important than ever, and this report underscores the critical role science plays in informing our energy future,” Burgum said in a press release announcing the study.
The report also comes as Republicans in Congress try to push a proposal that would allow the federal government to sell off several million acres of public land in Nevada, Utah and other Western states.
Nationally, the analysis estimated 29.4 billion barrels of oil and 391.6 trillion cubic feet of gas lie below all federal lands – enough oil to meet the county’s needs for four years and a dozen years in the case of natural gas.
The last federal analysis of undiscovered oil and gas resources on public lands in 1998, estimated about 7.8 billion barrels of oil and 201 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Schenk, the lead author of the report, said the analysis uses decades of federal data to estimate the potential for oil and gas where it hasn’t been discovered yet, but there’s still room for “uncertainty.”
“Whenever you’re exploring for resources, whether it’s minerals or oil and gas, there’s uncertainty before you drill,” Schenk said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, because it’s undiscovered.”
That uncertainty is reflected in the lack of oil and gas leasing in Nevada, despite available data pointing to potential sources in the state.
Nevada lease sales have long drawn little interest from industry. It’s not uncommon for large swaths of nominated land to never get a bid.
For example, the Bureau of Land Management offered five oil and gas parcels in Nevada totaling 6,800 acres this week. None of the parcels received a single bid. Those same parcels also failed to attract any industry interest in 2023 and 2024.
“We recognize that interest in Nevada is lower than other states in the West where development is more economical, such as New Mexico and Wyoming. The scale of this auction, for instance, was small relative to others,” said Aaron Johnson, the vice president of public and legislative affairs for the Western Energy Alliance trade group.
When land does get leased for oil and gas development, it underperforms in auction. From 2015 to 2024, the average bid per acre in Nevada was just $4.10—compared to $4,900 per acre in New Mexico.
Still, the Trump administration has pushed to lease more of Nevada’s public lands including 264,000 acres of public land in Elko County’s Ruby Mountains, a popular hunting and outdoor recreation site in Nevada.
Drilling opponents remain skeptical that there’s much oil and gas in Nevada or that extracting it would make economic sense any time soon. They think the development push is rooted in speculation.
“We’ve been leasing these low potential lands since the 1950s,” said Russell Kuhlman, the executive director of the Nevada Wildlife Federation. “We have yet to find anything that would get the oil and gas industry excited.”
Kuhlman said speculative oil and gas leasing in Nevada removes land that would be better suited for the recreation economy, wildlife conservation, or renewable energy development in the state.
Over 90 percent of public lands managed by the Interior Department in Nevada are available to be leased for oil and gas drilling. Once leased, public lands are locked up from being managed for multiple uses such as outdoor recreation and conservation for the life of the lease, which could be 10, 20 or even 30 years.
“That’s really where the issue is, once land is identified as an oil and gas lease, it’s essentially put in that folder and forgotten about by the Bureau of Land Management,” Kuhlman said.