[Zarro]

Sounds like good news. If energy speculators lose their shirts when the bubble bursts, even better.

Yeah, I tend to agree. Trouble is, the oil companies have already racked up huge profits. If you saw the last quarterly round of profit reports from the major oil companies, you know they made never-before-seen profit levels. And that was the last quarter. I'm very interested to see what their next reporting period brings. My prediction: record profits. So, the speculators who don't get out in time may lose it all, but many others will have done quite well. While the public has been told of all the disasters that caused the prices to rise.

[Smokin' Joe]

Damn! It is unconscionable that those who spend 3-4 million (or more!) to drill a well get a return on their investment.

Ever stop to think that those profits get rolled over into the next round of technology which makes a lot of domestic production possible?

The well I am working on would not have been possible 20 years ago. When we are done we will have drilled a hole in a 6 foot thick target zone nearly two miles sideways, two miles down, effectively turning 6 feet of pay into nearly 11,000.

I know of no other industry so berated for making the money it needs to crash the price of its product.

[Sam's Army]

"Trouble is, the oil companies have already racked up huge profits."

Since when is a corporation making a profit "trouble"?

[BOBTHENAILER]

Trouble is, the oil companies have already racked up huge profits.

So f--king what. What do you think is driving this country and its economic engine, apples?

[rwfromkansas]

you have links to these profit reports?

[RightWhale]

Trouble is, the oil companies have already racked up huge profits

Investment money to be drilled back into the ground. Nobody funds oil companies, nobody pays for their research, nobody does their prospecting for them, nobody develops their oilfield leases but them. They even have to build their own port facilities, refineries, and pipelines, and buy their own oil tankers. Who is going to pay for the $30 billion TransAlaska Natural Gas Pipeline?