Big Oil Not Sitting On Oil Acreage Despite Democrats’ Claims

http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20080713/OPINION0301/807130305 ^

[newbie2008]

Congressional Democrats now have their unified response to increasing calls for oil exploration in Alaska and in the waters off our shores: The energy companies, they say, are already sitting on plenty of oil, refusing to recover it.

But is that true?

“Energy companies are not producing oil or gas on 68 million acres of federal land under their control,” claims Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat. “The fact of the matter is Congress has already allowed oil companies to drill, but those companies are refusing to drill because they want to lock up as much federal land as possible and wait for oil to rise to $200 or $300 a barrel so that they can make even greater profits than they are making now.”

Therefore, the Democrats say, there’s no need to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf, despite the crippling rise of gasoline prices.

[y6162]

Congressman Maurice Hinchey is insane.

[kempo]

I think the polls show that the public believes what the oil companies say rather than thee Democrats.

[lesser_satan]

“They are searching for oil even as you read this,” the Daily says. “Some parts of those 68 million acres will have oil, some won’t. But at $145 a barrel, you can bet oil companies have plenty of incentive to find it.”

I wonder how many of those acres are for pipelines, storage/staging areas, alternative energy, etc that they never expected to find oil on.

[JimRed]

The had to lease it to explore it. There is not enough gas or oil (if any at all) in those locations to make drilling economically feasible.

The left knows this, but also knows that the big lie, repeated endlessly, becomes the morons’ truth. Then the morons vote RAT.

[Spktyr]

Bookmark for later...

[Zevonismymuse]

“Energy companies are not producing oil or gas on 68 million acres of federal land under their control,” claims Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat. “The fact of the matter is Congress has already allowed oil companies to drill, but those companies are refusing to drill because they want to lock up as much federal land as possible and wait for oil to rise to $200 or $300 a barrel so that they can make even greater profits than they are making now.”

Talk about Conspiracy Theories. What an ignorant accusation. People who work for "Big Oil" will drill any time and anywhere there is a profit to be made. They are in the energy production business, as are all the contractors who support the capture of oil.

Oil Companies are like fishermen, there may be a big ocean out there, but they only want to go where the fish are.

[counterpunch]

[mewzilla]

Congressman Maurice Hinchey is insane.

He's not nuts. He's a sleazeball. I attended one of town meetings quite a few years back. I wanted a shower afterwards.

[mewzilla]

Correction: An ignorant sleazeball.

[mewzilla]

Hinchey's district.

Note the City of Evil and Binghamton, home of SUNY-B.

Nuff said.

[richardtavor]

Generally, you have different qualities of prospects. The 68 million acres that they mention are prospective, and there will be some exploration done on it, but we know that the highest grade prospects are in ANWR and Federal Offshore leases that are not currently available. Where would you rather explore, where the best prospects are or the not so good prospects. The double hypocrisy is that the oil companies pay large bonuses to the government to explore on those tracts. Democrats believe in the Jed Clampett theory of exploration—that the only reason that we don't drill is because we are trying to manipulate the price—isn't that priceless? We produce 5% of the worlds supply—get over it.

[BigSkyDream]

The best way to answer these democrats who use this argument is explain it in a way that even they can understand.

"Oil leases are like scratch and win lottery tickets."

Every ticket is not a winner and every lease will not produce any recoverable oil or gas.

[FredZarguna]

Oil leases are like scratch and win lottery tickets.

Every ticket is not a winner and every lease will not produce any recoverable oil or gas.

That is beautiful.

Spread the word.

[marron]

They get away with saying stuff like this, because most of their public knows nothing at all about oil or anything else.

The problem is that there are millions of people out there who do work in oil either directly or indirectly who know that these people are fools.

The Dems’ only hope in attracting votes from these people is the chance that they’ll say, “he’s full of it when he talks about things I know about, but maybe he’s right when he talks about things I don’t know about”. Whereas I take the opposite approach. If he’s clearly full of it when he talks about things I know about, he’s full of it.

[pennboricua]

oil leases are rather like found money for the governments coffers, the oil companies are leasings these lands, they are paying money for them! where is the loss to the government if the oil companies wish to spent their money on more leases?

[freelancer]

This article is a keeper.

[FlingWingFlyer]

The DemocRATS are so ignorant of how things work. They really need to take a day off, get out of their office and take a look around at the real world. They seem to think that you can go anywhere, drill a hole in the ground and out shoots the oil. I’m no oil guy but I really don’t think it works that way.

[wildbill]

Back in the day I remember when discovered wells were being capped because the cost of recovery was higher than a benchmark price of $35-40.

I don’t know if all those wells are now pumping, but lease owners were hopeful at the time that their leases would someday pay out.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Fine and dandy. However how I wish just ONE of the "Big Oil" company executives would make it a point to go in the offensive and be willing to appear on ever major TV network and point by point refute these allegations.

Of course the way they all sat there being chastised and heckled by the morons in Congress like a bunch or Republican WIMPS, without defending themselves or their companies, its not surprising they are hiding under their desks.

WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF???

Sheesh.