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The Ongoing Deepwater Drilling Disaster (Drilling ban costs thousands of high-skilled jobs)
Forbes ^ | 12/09/2010 | Larry Bell

Posted on 12/09/2010 7:27:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Mindful not to waste a perfectly good crisis, the Obama White House and influential congressional Democrats have seized the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster to assert a continuing stranglehold control over offshore drilling operations. On Dec. 1 Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's seven-year extended prohibition on new oil and gas development off the Florida and eastern Atlantic coasts is once again adding enormous penalties to our already ailing economy and employment market. Costs include many thousands of lost high-skilled job opportunities, increased energy and product prices, more industry relocations overseas and greater dependence upon foreign oil imports.

The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association has projected that each deepwater rig represents about 1,420 potential jobs, with salaries averaging $1,804 per week. The moratorium will force rig owners to locate their costly platforms, experienced safety-savvy employees and the prosperity and fuel products they generate in more politically friendly foreign venues such as Brazil, China and North Sea sites.

The decision to put the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast off limits to oil drilling has reversed policies that President Barack Obama embraced earlier this year. In April he had announced that "in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel." Accordingly, he proposed a plan to expand oil and natural gas exploration in the Atlantic, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

Did this apparent departure from the traditional opposition of his very liberal base signal a "drill, baby, drill" epiphany? Or was it primarily a cap-and-trade bargaining strategy? A brief review of some background events might shed a bit of light.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: deepwater; disaster; drilling; energy; naturalgas; oil; oilspill

1 posted on 12/09/2010 7:27:45 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: thackney

Ping.


2 posted on 12/09/2010 7:30:43 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: SeekAndFind
What is Biden’s stance on off shore drilling?

From what I have heard of Rep Issa’s oversight plans, Bite-me may well be our new president next year.

Stay away from Chicago Joe!

3 posted on 12/09/2010 7:40:04 AM PST by Happy Rain
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To: SeekAndFind

I believe that hussein is a jihadi who will wreck whatever destruction he can upon the United States, up to and including nuclear war.

Is there a view that militates against this? I hope to God I´m wrong, but I don´t think so.


4 posted on 12/09/2010 7:53:17 AM PST by onedoug
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To: SeekAndFind
Since so much of the USA economy is based upon cheap energy, the Libs efforts to stop drilling will have the effect of driving up energy costs. I know this is what they want. But they do not appear to understand that the rapid increase in energy costs will stop the US economy.

1. How will the family drive or fly to Disney World with $5.00 gasoline?

2. How will families heat their homes when the price of natural gas is tied to the price of oil?

There are hundred examples which we can offer, the net effect with the cost of energy rapidly rising will force drastic changes in the life styles of the family and kill the job market.

5 posted on 12/09/2010 8:24:25 AM PST by Lockbox (`)
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To: SeekAndFind

Obama and the Dems will continue to screw up the economy via regulation despite the loss of the House. This example shows how.


6 posted on 12/09/2010 8:30:12 AM PST by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
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To: FreedomPoster

Ken Salazar is the final authority on permitting rigs.
The interior dept is now whining that they need to hire 15,000 new employees because the workload is just so overwhelming that they just can’t issue new permits. The made a public show of lifting the moratorium, but clogged up the works with the permitting process. Salazar is accountable only to his boss obama.
They used the BP disaster to shut down all new business in the offshore industry. Last I heard, 5 rigs are being prepped to leave for Guyana/Brazil area.


7 posted on 12/09/2010 8:36:19 AM PST by Texas resident (Hunkered Down)
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: Lockbox
How will families heat their homes when the price of natural gas is tied to the price of oil?

Although they are both influenced by many of the same items, they are not tied together as can be seen in historical price per BTU charts.

Black line. Jan 1998 to Jun 2009: average price over the month of West Texas Intermediate, in dollars per barrel

Blue line. Jan 1998 to April 2009: six times the U.S. natural gas wellhead price.

9 posted on 12/09/2010 10:15:00 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Lockbox
How will families heat their homes when the price of natural gas is tied to the price of oil?

Although they are both influenced by many of the same items, they are not tied together as can be seen in historical price per BTU charts.

Black line. Jan 1998 to Jun 2009: average price over the month of West Texas Intermediate, in dollars per barrel

Blue line. Jan 1998 to April 2009: six times the U.S. natural gas wellhead price.

10 posted on 12/09/2010 10:15:08 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Army Air Corps

For those of us in the design business, offshore or onshore, places like South America, particular Brazil, will keep us alive until those countries catch up with their training and staffing.


11 posted on 12/09/2010 10:17:47 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: SeekAndFind

12 posted on 12/09/2010 2:29:13 PM PST by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Lt. Col. Ralph Peters: Obama is the dog who caught the fire truck!)
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