Why Not?!!!!
Posted on 06/29/2008 7:53:56 AM PDT by shove_it
The chief practical argument coming from those who oppose opening our continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling is that it will take ten years to get the oil so it will not have any impact on current oil prices. The response is that is factual and analytical hogwash, insofar as the whole point of futures markets is to discount the impact of changes in future supply.
It is also, by the way, reasoning that many on the left would not want applied to their own pet project:
My response to those who say that increased drilling is pointless because it won't yield immediate results -- like Arnold Schwarzenegger --is why worry about the greenhouse effect, then? Nothing we do will cool the planet immediately. Yet we're told immediate action there is vital. In fact, we're told that by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the very same speech.
One would have thought that this point was so obvious it would not have to be made at all. But then, one would also think it obvious that a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies would reduce the supply of oil in the future, since we have empirical evidence from the Carter fiasco that it will, yet Barack Obama continues to push the idea. That the mainstream media refuses to call Obama to account for the obvious impact of "don't drill, do tax!" on gasoline prices reveals them as utterly unthinking or completely in the tank for the guy. It is hard to know which it might be. Maybe it's both!
If you had read the Wall Street Journal article several days ago that explained that, you might have not written your post. The article explained that, until the lessee has a producing well on a parcel--regardless if he has been actively exploring and surveying the parcel for the past five years, the government considers the parcel to be inactive--thus the disinformation the past week emanating from the Democrats. It does sound like, however, that you have already made up your mind and no amount of fact will change it.
And we wonder why the same idiots keep getting elected when they say things exactly like "with 33 million acres of offshore already leased to oil and gas companies, are they not drilling THERE, already? They are only drilling some 17% of it".
I have heard the same leftist dribble talking points on every 'news' show I turned on.
Press Here Harry Reid's talking points.
"33 Million Outer Continental Shelf Acres Under Lease Are NOT Being Drilled. There are 33 million acres of the federal OCS lands that are under lease but are not producing."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037974/posts
I would much rather American money go the “Seven Sisters” than OPEC. Google “OPEC members” for a list of these wonderful countries. The “Seven Sisters” may scam me some but they won't blow up my town or saw off my head.
Welcome to Free Republic. I'm keepin’ an eye on you, eh.
I talked to my Sis in Idaho yesterday and she was telling me about a proposed nuclear plant somewhere near Mountain Home. It seems that the anti-nuclear moonbats have already come out of the woodwork and are screaming that the project will “poison generations of children” and are promising lawsuit after lawsuit to stop the project.
Why Not?!!!!
Exxon doesn't need the retail gasoline business. They can make all their money on the wholesale end. The retail gasoline business only accounts for a few cents of profit on a gallon of gas.
There are several other reasons the coastal plain is distinct from the rest of the ANWR. It is not part of the hills and mountains of the Brooks Range, where the environmentalists take their beautiful photos of the ANWR. It is a flat, treeless, almost featureless plain in northeastern Alaska that extends from the Brooks Range northward to the Beaufort Sea. There are times on the coastal plain when exposing human flesh to the elements would ensure death. The temperature can drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit in January. Few animals can thrive in those temperatures.
Only five species of birds, some polar bears (who den on the Beaufort Sea pack ice) and lemmings (who burrow beneath the snow-pack) remain during the winter months. There are 56 days of total darkness during the year, and almost nine months of harsh winter.
The spring thaw comes in late May or early June. This increases the bird count and brings back the arctic fox and, most significantly, the Porcupine caribou. While only a portion of the caribou herd shows up each year, many environmental activists refer to the coastal plain as their traditional calving grounds. The females endure the conditions of the tundra for protection against most predators and for the cotton grass that will help to fatten their offspring.
The caribou travel to the coastal plain from Canada, passing near 89 dry wells drilled by the Canadian government and crossing Canada's Dempster Highway--all of which seems to be development that does not hinder theirmigration or survival.
Our only experiment with oil fields and caribou has taken place nearby on Alaska's North Slope in Prudhoe Bay. The Central Arctic caribou herd that inhabits part of Prudhoe Bay has grown from 6,000 in 1978 to 19,700 today, according to the most recent estimates by state and federal wildlife agencies.
In fact, there is some evidence that the caribou use un-vegetated and elevated sites such as river bars, mud flats, dunes, gravel pads and roads in the existing oil fields as relief habitat from mosquitoes and from oestrid flies that attack their nostrils. The 1995 legislation vetoed by President Clinton would have given the secretary of Interior the power to stop development and exploration during the summer months if there were any threat to the caribou.
Environmentalists also worry about the polar bear, though most biologists will tell you that the bears rarely den on land in this region, preferring the arctic ice. Alaska's polar bear population is healthy and unthreatened. The Marine Mammals Protection Act takes care of the polar bear in the existing oil fields--and would do the same on the coastal plain.
Senator Frank H. Murkowski (AK)
"Drill Here. Drill Now. Save Money."
10 years, 5 years, 1 year, 1 day - whatever
a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step
since the democrats have no other solution, they need to shut up and let the adults try *something*
let exxon take those ‘obscene profits’ they earned and place it at risk by drilling where the oil is known to be - not on the ‘68 million acres’ where there is no oil
the democrats are preventing us from getting the oil and lowering prices - and taking a gamble that the voters are not smart enough to understand that - what scares me is that the gamble might pay off for them
Yeah, I know, plus a bunch of bad press about that $4.599 gas. I was just teasing Milky.
Politicians realizing that all Americans aren’t mushrooms and dumber than a sack of rocks is not going to help them RIGHT NOW COME NOVEMBER!!
Guess they can sit in the dark, wait 3 months for dry goods by wagon to arrive and walk to work for all I care....what a bunch of uniformed, ignorant morons....nukes are the cleanest, safest, cheapest, and most efficient forms of generating electricity. Guess they’ve failed to read about Yuma Mtn. being completed and open for business too? What about breeder reactors? Very little waste with those designs.
Considering the FACT that no major Oil Company or Exploration Firm has ever conducted mass HDP surveys of the 33 million offshore acres in question, how can they know how much oil is contained therein? How can they know that there is oil under the reas described in the moratorium, either?
I think you are evading the issue, but to answer your query, you are right. There isn’t enough profit in the stations themselves to justify Exxon keeping some 8000 people on the payroll at about 1400 US retail service stations. Notice that whomever buys the stations will STILL be selling EXXON’S gasoline, under the EXXON brand, however. There is still some $$$ to be made refining, apparently.
I have no issue with capitalism. It’s demonstrably the most successful economic system we have yet come across.
I have an issue with Oil and Gas companies who have not properly surveyed some 33 million acres of active offshore leases saying that HAVE TO open up UNPROVEN, sensitive environmental areas to drilling.
I have no problem with them conducting mass HDP surveys in these environmentally sensitive, “moratorium” areas, either - as long as they do the same with the unexplored 83% of the areas they have already leased!
Considering that Congress has actually BEEN saying this for a decade or more, it does actually seem like somewhat of a real argument.
I have nothing against oil exploration. If the Oil and Gas companies would actually DO a little more “exploring,” and a little less “politicking,” this would not be an issue.
I see this as being about CONTROL of resources, not exploration, at all.
I think that you are forgetting that leases have been granted at a rate of over 350% since 1998, and these leases have, as yet, not been properly surveyed AT ALL.
They DO NOT WANT TO DRILL. The cheaper they make oil, the less profit they make, the cheaper their assets and net worth become. They need to CONTROL these leases - they certainly do not need to exploit them.
Where did you hear that they returned “sizeable amounts of leased property?” I had heard that they sold leases on almost 5000 acres of US land that they HAD NOT SURVEYED to third party exploration firms working under the Chevron brand, but that is it, as far as I know...
Considering my previous employment with Irving in NB, I believe that I’ve got a pretty fair handle on underwater oil exploration and HDP surveying. The FACT is, they have only surveyed some 25% of the acreage in question, and have only chosen to exploit 17%. 68% is a pretty good percentage, don’t you think? I have no idea what the percentage of exploitable reserves would be if they surveyed the remaining 75% of their active leases in the US, but then again, neither do they - which is the point I have been attempting to make.
Considering the FACT that you don't know much about oil exploration I won't waste my time trying to explain it.
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