WASHINGTON, Nov 23: The Bush administration said on Friday it hopes to issue next month a widely anticipated assessment of oil and natural gas reserves on federal lands throughout the West.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management had planned to release the report in November, but an agency spokeswoman said it was delayed by a series of internal reviews by several government agencies.

We are optimistic (the report) will be out in December, she told Reuters. There is strong interest in it, and we want to make sure that when it comes out, it has been fully reviewed.

The report will estimate unproven reserves of crude oil and natural gas in many national monuments, national forests and other federally-owned lands.

President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, has called for a significant increase in energy production on public lands to help wean U.S. dependence on foreign oil and to meet future demand for natural gas fuel for power plants.

However, some advocacy groups are concerned that a push to open more federal lands in the West to energy exploration will damage the environment for a relatively tiny amount of extra oil or gas.

Dave Alberswerth, a Western lands expert with the Wilderness Society, said the Bureau of Land Management’s report was likely to reflect the White House’s eagerness to cater to the interests of oil, gas and coal companies at the environment’s expense.

We have grave concerns over the conclusions that will be reached, said Alberswerth. It doesn’t surprise me that the political leadership in the department would want to review it before it is released to the public if it’s going to be controversial.

In a 31-page report of its own last month, the Wilderness Society said the Bureau of Land Management’s assessment will inflate oil and gas reserves in the West by reporting technically recoverable resources rather than those that are profitable for oil companies to remove.

The Wilderness Society estimated if more drilling was allowed in key national forests and monuments in the West, the combined areas would produce enough natural gas to meet US demand for about 11 weeks, and crude oil to satisfy consumption for about 3 weeks.

The Bureau of Land Management was asked by Congress to complete its review of oil and gas reserves by early November, but the process was slowed because much of the data necessary was not available.

For its part, the Interior Department has previously estimated 105 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas, for example, are located on public lands in the lower 48 states that are currently off limits to drilling.

Another 108 TCF is located in areas that are subject to restrictions.—Reuters