Posted on 06/20/2008 3:16:28 PM PDT by kellynla
A bill introduced in Congress this week would "compel" oil and natural gas companies to produce from federal lands they are leasing. If only it were that easy to find and produce oil. Imagine, an act of Congress that could do what geology could not.
These lawmakers ask why oil and gas companies want more access to federal lands to drill if they aren't using all of the 68 million acres they already have? Anyone with even the most basic understanding of how oil and natural gas are produced – and this should include many members of Congress – knows that claims of "idle" leases are a diversionary feint.
A company bids for and buys a lease because it believes there is a possibility that it may yield enough oil or natural gas to make the cost of the lease, and the costs of exploration and production, commercially viable. The U.S. government received $3.7 billion from company bids in a single lease sale in March 2008.
However, until the actual exploration is complete, a company does not know whether the lease will be productive. If, through exploration, it finds there is no oil or natural gas underneath a lease – or that there is not enough to justify the tremendous investment required to bring it to the surface – the company cuts its losses by moving on to more promising leases. Yet it continues to pay rent on the lease, atop a leasing bonus fee.
In addition, if the company does not develop the lease within a certain period of time, it must return it to the federal government, forfeiting all its costs. All during this active exploration and evaluation phase, however, the lease is listed as "nonproducing."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I just don’t understand where this 68 million acres of undrilled leases comes from.
I work for one of the biggest oil companies in America, and we don’t have anywhere near even a million acres of undrilled federal leases. It might be a couple hundred thousand acres, most of which was recently purchased with plans to drill.
Why has no one demanded to hear how they came up with this number?
Cavuto was demanding today :-) and he also mentioned a rumor that the oil companies would be willing to ‘trade’ leases on those 68 MILLION ACRES!!! for those in ANWR, off of Florida, etc. It wasn’t verified yet, but since Congress WANTS the consumers paying high prices for foreign oil, I doubt they’d agree to the trades—like someone else wrote here, there’d be no end to the lawsuits from the ‘environmentalists’ over the endangered hairy peat moss catepillar or something. ;-)
Sorry but that comment has me laughing my arse off. It only shows the ignorance of those that have no knowledge of oil. Just because you lease it, doesn’t mean there oil!
Exactly! Which was Cavuto’s point. :-)
And the oil exec/expert’s point as well. Apparently the early
studies show that yes, there is *some* oil on those acres, but NOWHERE near what ANWR, etc. promises!!
Dopey demmies.
Look up Chevron “Jack” field in the gulf of mexico. This is being developed right now. There are other’s right behind it. There is oil out there, and the Dem’s are too stupid to let us drill for it. For that reason alone, they should be voted out of office. If the republicans don’t have enough sense to make this an issue, shame on em!
Look oil exploration is a very cheap and fast process. You take out the old Winchester squirrel rifle and fire bullets into the ground. Out comes a bubbling crude, every time. Then you rape American consumers by making a whopping 8% profit.
Wait a moment, yer not saying that the ultra rare medium light brown earthworm is endangered, are you? I've actually studied this (in College, of course) and have determined that its the uber rare green warted light to dark medium somewhat pink spotted Kgnat with asymmetric gills and a piercing stare which is endangered by oil drilling. This is a very important species, and not one to be written off so easily in order to feed our collective gluttony for oil derived fuels .....
/sarc off
Then ya move you and yer kin to Beverly Hills and star in a TV show :)
Why can’t the Reps and McCain explain this simple fact to the public instead of letting the Dems get away with lies about 68,000,000 idle acres under lease?
Stupid is as stupid does.
It's the piercing stare that really separates it from other Kgnat's. Others say it's all in the eye of the beholder.
:>)
Mr. Cavaney’s article needs to reported on every MSM outlet in the country. Knowing the MSM, however, and their derelict ways, they will probably never report it!
I remain utterly convinced that we have SUPER VAST RESERVES that have been secretly idled since Ike’s Administration and often since then additional secret reserves have been capped and kept quiet about.
Hence, my new tagline.
Congressional Democrats are such a pack of liars. Why can’t they just come out and say that they are socialists/Marxists/communists? Of course, knowing about all the sheeple out there, that question practically answers itself! :-)
Others say it's all in the eye of the beerholder.
How do you know the potential exists if you haven't explored? You can't have it both ways...unless potential is not really a good guide to actual.
This is a good explaination of how oil leases work, but the Democrat talking point of “the oil companies have not used the leases they have” is a quick and easy lie that works with the masses.
And don’t you just KNOW that if oil WAS discovered to be plentiful in any of those areas, suddenly the govt would step in and declare it to be a “protected wetland” or national park or some crap like that.
I have to wonder how many of our Congressment own substantial oil stock and are reaping huge profits themselves by these high gas prices!
Would not surprise me one bit.
Exactly! The environmentalist libbies would jump all over that like a duck on a June bug the minute a LOT of oil was found, claiming that some endangered micro-organism would be extinct if drilling continued, lawsuits would fly right and left, and the American consumer would be doubly hit in the wallet because the gas prices would continue to go up—
Oy. :-(
For the life of me, I don’t know why these people are so anti-American. I just don’t get it! Don’t they understand that if they accomplished all they want to do in this country, then THEY would be out in the cold as well?!?
(And I don’t mean global cooling/warming/BS, you know what I mean!) Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!!
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