If there was any oil worth speaking of in that 68 million acres of leased land, oil companies would drill there. And his assertion that prices wouldn't go down is crap. Oil went down $11 a barrel when Bush lifted the Executive Order on drilling.
I also agree with cleaning house in DC.
Also, some of that leased land has been drilled so much
that it will take special types of drilling to get another
drop out of the oil shale....very expensive and doesn’t
guarantee that there will be a producing well.
They need NEW sites...period!
Just because you have the lease does not mean the feds will permit drilling there. Nor does that prevent them promulgating regulations or making rulings that you must jump through hoops which make a well cost-prohibitive, even at today's pices.
Even known producing zones will not be drilled if the BLM can stop it and wants to prevent it (think National Forrest, National Grasslands). The Federal Government owns over half of the land west of the Mississippi, and I have seen individual BLM people who treat that land as their personal fiefdom, which might not be all bad, but there are a lot of dirt worshippers in the bunch.
The Mexicons are drilling in the Gulf right now in 7,000 feet of water.
Since drilling rigs are in such short supply they are paying 440,000 bucks per day. That's per day to drill.!
Even more ironic after all the boo-- hooing the dirty dems do about "big oil" and all their "excess profits" is the fact that their return on sales is only 8% and that after they pay 10% to the govt. in excise taxes alone forget the other myriad of taxes they are paying.
The dirty dems should be kissing the feet of every oil driller, Exxon , BP etc. there is, they are picking up the tab for the deficit the rats are creating.!! With costs like that are you going to be extra careful where you drill?--I think so!!
How arrogant of anyone to tell a company putting out money like that when and where they can drill, unbelievable.!!