Posted on 04/12/2011 2:53:21 PM PDT by ransomnote
Last week I interviewed the Texas energy baron T. Boone Pickens four consecutive nights in front of a live audience. Pickens would talk for 40 minutes and then I would interview him for 50 minutes. (Full disclosure: I was paid a fee to do this, not from Pickens but from the event’s owner.)
The Pickens presentations had an interesting underlying tension: Texas billionaire, oilman and Republican trying to convince earnest San Francisco Bay Area liberals about the virtues of natural gas. How did Pickens do in front of liberal, vaguely hostile audiences? Surprisingly well. He made his case with numbers.
Here is what Pickens said:
– Global demand for oil is 86-88 million barrels per day. It will be 90 million by the end of the year, due to global growth.
– Global production is 84 million barrels per day. Since production falls short of demand, prices have risen.
– America consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day. We produce 7 million barrels domestically and import the other 13 million barrels. Of the 13 million barrels of imported oil, 5 million come from OPEC – “nations that hate us,” says Pickens.
– The true cost of Middle Eastern oil is over $300 a barrel if you account for U.S. military presence in the Middle East, according to Pickens.
– “Drill baby, drill” – the conservative mantra to drill more oil from the Gulf of Mexico, off the East and West Coast shelves, and the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would produce an extra 2 million barrels a day at best, says Pickens. The would raise America’s domestic production from 7 million to 9 million barrels but still leave America 11 million barrels short each day.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.forbes.com ...
If you are talking about his Pampa Wind Project that would have or will be located on the Parker County CREZ, he is after the rate payers money.
If you are talking about his Mesa Water Project, that too would be rate payer money
I lived in Amarillo when his Mesa Partners was there. He wanted Amarillo’s city-owned gas field. He couldn’t get it honestly, so he got his city commission/mayor elected with his millions. He then bought his gas field for pennies on the dollar. When the people complained loudly, he said Amarillo was just a giant truckstop, took his toys, and moved his business to Dallas. A big crook.
TBone also tried to get the taxpayers to pay for the transmission lines for his windmills. When that failed, he dropped the project. He has also been buying up water rights on the Ogallala aquifer. He plans on selling that water to the big cities (out from under the farmers) at a great profit. Watch your backs. I ran into him and his 5 cowboy bodyguards on several occasions. Nasty bunch.
yeah, and I heard he got in a jam and had to sell to some outfit run by an ex wall street gal. Was it Pioneer???? Sumpin anyways. Then after a month she saw what a joke he was and showed him the door.
Doin’ a deal with T. Boone is like sleeping in a rattlesnake den. Ya know, if I was an 80 yr. old billionaire I would just go home sit on the front porch with the grandkids. I guess his ego is so huge and demanding he needs somebody to stroke it sometimes.
Mr. Haney: Good Morning Mr Douglas have I got a deal fer you.
Don’t pick a firefight with someone that controls mega-therms of energy !!!
I suspect “T-Bone” carefully cultivates his “Good O’l Texas County Boy” image to conceal his cmprehensive knowledge of the energy market place and just how many politicians he owns.....
Not my idea, but a good one......Enact legislation requiring all Congresscritters to wear “politicians suits” in the colors/logos of their manifold contributors whenever they appear on the floor or at public political events. >PS
Well said in all respects!!!!
I heard that he owns nearly all the water rights in Texas. Whatever happened to the days when water was a commonly held commodity, and whatever you could access for your use was your business, not governments to sell to the highest bidder? They use the excuse that water is too important to all people to be held individually, then sell the right to access to ONE man, who then sells it to individuals at a rate he sets. This is just another part of fascist America, that we don’t even realize how little property we own....which is practically zero. The govt owns your body, your land, your children, your ashes and your corpse after death. We are as unfree, if that is a word, as any character in the book 1984. We even turn our eyes to the telescreen and have our spirits SOAR, when news of a great victory is telecast. We cry in unison, when they tell us grave news.
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