The one good thing about escalating gas prices is the whole country is mad as hell and is going to hold the democrats and some republicans directly responsible when they oppose drilling for our own oil.
Now is the perfect time for some brave Republican(s)(if we still have any) to bring bills to the floor advocating new domestic drilling.
If, by some miracle, legislation is passed allowing domestic drilling again it should be initiated with the same fervor as we see in preparation for war. It is often said it would take ten years or more from the date of new drilling until it reaches the market but why do we have to assume this to be true?
Massive deployments of technicians, welders and materials and daily flights of cargo planes flying into drilling sites just as we seen in the build up to the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Off shore drilling could be initiated with the same emergency with large numbers of ships carrying personnel, equipment and supplies and working around the clock.
The immediate response from the oil producing nations would be the realization America has finally struck a huge blow for independence against their tyrannical rule over our country and even when they start dropping prices, we just keep on drilling for our independence.
This may be a ‘pie in the sky’ vision but no one can tell me this country isn’t capable of doing the seemly impossible, we have done it before.
I hate to pop your bubble, but we already are drilling at the maximum rate. We are very much behind schedule in regards to the available leases waiting to be opened. Most leases are private. The Government has only a few and allows drilling on them. You have been grossly misinformed as far as your belief that there is no domestic drilling.
As far as your visualization of “deployment”. You have been watching too many movies. That is simply unrealistic of how this industry functions. There are no airfields nor can there be around most drilling sites. We truck them in, and are well equipped to do so.
All the existing rigs are now working and a few new ones are being built, but the biggest problem is, a severe lack of trained people capable of operating them and the extreme cost of building a new one.
More importantly, you just don’t send somebody to a school for 3 months or even a year to be able to operate one. It takes years, decades to gain the necessary knowledge.
That’s the problem. There was too long a time in between the last boom that caused an entire generation to be lost. Those of us left are far and few between and are currently more busy than we care to be.