Posted on 03/22/2002 7:28:16 AM PST by Willie Green
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:09 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
ABERDEEN, Scotland -- BP is cutting 500 jobs in its North Sea oil operations, representing 16 percent of its work force in oil extraction operations.
"Most of the onshore employees affected will leave the company by the middle of the year and offshore employees by the end of the year," the company said in Friday's announcement.
It said it should know next month how many of the cuts can be achieved voluntarily.
Scott Urban, BP's group vice president for northwest Europe, said a cost-cutting review had focused on all aspects of the company's operations in this area.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
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As North Sea oil production continues to decline, America's dependence on imported petroleum will shift even more towards OPEC. While drilling offshore and in ANWR may help, it would still be insufficient to dramaticly reduce our ever-increasing consumption.
The obvious solution to this dependency would be to begin construction of modern, efficient mass-transportation systems in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas. Electricly powered light rail, high-speed rail and maglev systems could be easily fueled by clean-coal and nuclear technology power plants.
Unfortunately, RINOs have been bought-out by Big Oil special interests. Alaskan representative Don Young, who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, continues to sidetrack and delay implementation of energy efficient mass-transportation systems. A whole contingent of Nevada RINOs unite to obstruct our nation's efforts to utilize abundant nuclear power. And Dubya's own sibling, Jeb, brags about his obstruction on his re-election website:
Protecting Florida’s Coasts From Offshore Drilling – Thanks to Governor Bush’s hard work and leadership, Florida’s coastal and marine resources will continue to be free from the threat of offshore drilling. Protections secured by Governor Bush far exceed those agreed to by former President Clinton, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and the late-Governor Lawton Chiles.
According to the Department of Energy,the most optimistic estimates for ANWR production are about a million and a half barrels a day but that peak won't be reached much before 2020. More likely is a peak around a million barrels a day by 2020.
ANWR won't even get us close to our 1970 peak and at best if fills ten percent of our reliance on foreign oil.
The countries of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have two thirds of all the oil remaining in the world. Saudi Arabia alone has one quarter. It's time to realize that we need alternatives to oil or we will be forever at the mercy of the Middle East
The DOE report on ANWR is here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/aong/pdf/sroiaf(2002)02.pdf
bttt
Oh well, bttt!
Oh well.... bttt again!
The largest coal producing state is Wyoming, which delivers coal to 24 states. The two major railroads at Wyoming's Powder River Basin, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, operate a joint line out of the mines that has reached its capacity of 64 trains per day or more than 300 million tons per year.
It will take several billion dollars to expand the capacity to ship coal where it is needed.
The economic slowdown was a blessing in disquise because it gave us breathing room to deal with the rapidly approaching limits to our ability to produce energy. If we fail to take advantage of that opportunity we are setting ourselves up for major problems.
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