Everyone should read this article. The world’s hyperpower has not built an oil refinery in 32 years??? This is a harbinger of bad things coming.
3-5 years to get a permit to drill is just a waste of time. With all the wells that have been put in place in this country, you would think they would have this down to a science. It has just become another way to refuse a permit. It’s BS.
The Greens have a stranglehold on the economy. They have achieved what Muslim terrorists and other American-haters only dream of doing.
Thanks for posting ... interesting to see that few folks talk about the aggregate impact of multiple long-term and near-term “threats” to our processing industry:
- less refining = expensive fertilizer, fewer plastics, less gas, and lots of imports of many, many products and feedstocks
- enviro “good intentions” have morphed into enviro “terrorism” over the last 30 years
latest threats:
- new drill permit process (proposed)
- massive reduction in permits to drill on federal lands
- hydraulic fracturing permit (proposed)
- EPA regs (pending, if no cap-and-tax legislation)
Possible impacts:
1. Natural gas oversupply could vanish in 12 months, resulting in a natural gas super-spike (we have delayed or cancelled many LNG terminals, and we let the Chinese buy future rights to Canadian gas)
2. Increase in oil imports as domestic production comes under even more pressure
3. Tough decisions at refineries ... whether to invest “offshore” or onshore. Companies with retail gasoline outlets (e.g. Valero) may have the toughest decisions.
4. Continued pressure on exploration, production, transportation and refining employment.
Ultimately the “oil and refining and mining are bad” education message over the last 20+ years will haunt us for decades. Another reason to figure out now how you might live (”get by”) with little fertilizer, plastics, nat.gas, gasoline or electricity ...
But it’s racism not to buy oil from foreigners. It’s also racism for evil American oil corporations to drill for oil on American soil...
It’s amazing to me- we could create thousands of jobs, literally overnight. Too bad we don’t have any politicians with a brain...
Rebuild and refurbish our OWN refineries, and build new ones as we drill our own oil and natural gas and dig our own shale. Oops! the government would have to give back the land it has grabbed from the states for that to happen, huh?
Get the EPA off the backs of the states so they can build nuclear plants to take care of the energy needs in urban areas. Too blindingly obvious?
Cut the corporate tax by half and allow tax incentives for R&D and the creation of new jobs.
There ya go- thousands, maybe millions, of new jobs,in every area, practically overnight.
We could build forty new refineries here in the States - but lo and behold, thirty-eight of them would mysteriously have to “shut down for maintenance” as soon as the price at the pump dropped below $2.25 or so.