I didn’t see his comments, but there is a problem with companies sitting on leases without drilling. Palin fought several of the big companies for this and was successful in getting loafers to either drill or get off the claim.
For years the Democrats and their friends in the Watermelon community (green on the outside red in the middle) like the Sierra Club have fought efforts by oil companies to drill in the United States. The result has been a terrific shortage of drilling rigs which cannot be made up overnight. The Bakken area of North Dakota, and the Eagle Ford in Texas are two sites where companies hold thousands of drilling leases but simply do not have the rigs to drill where they want. In the case of the Marcellus shale region in Pennsylvania, the companies have been blocked by the enivronmentalists, and thousands of leases are idle. Even if the Marcellus were to open tomorrow, the companies will not have the rigs to operate as they want. Most will be working elsewhere. As for offshore rigs in the Gulf, the Obama administration has been so daunting that rigs, including one of the world’s largest offshore, have picked up and moved elsewhere. And it is not a good bet that they will return any time soon.
The overview in the article is correct; the companies have a good general idea of where they want to drill, but they will never know the sweet spots until exploratory drilling gives them the appraisal they need.
For the fatuous President of the USA to blame the oil companies for our present fix is the quintessence of immaturity. But, what the Hell, that’s what we get for electing a leftist ideologue to the office.