Our lives revolve around oil. Oil brings food to our stores, comprises the fibers in our carpets and makes the plastic in our DVDs. With demand so high it’s no wonder attention has turned to supply, with some advocating the U.S. lift the ban against drilling for oil off its coasts. Is offshore oil drilling a golden opportunity, or would it only create a tidal wave of disaster?
Please select the category that most closely reflects your concern about this content,
so that we can review it and determine whether it violates Civility 101 or isn't
appropriate for some other reason.
Abusing this feature is also a violation of Civility 101.
Explanation:
graemeCR said: "Oil is a global commodity which is sold on the open market to the highest bidder. Do you really believe that any oil found in, on or under U.S. land or the OCS will be for the exclusive use of the U.S.?"
New oil production found in the US offshore wil simkly displace the equivalent volume of current US imports. The US imports 2/3 of the crude oil it consumes; it would make no sense to export oil from California or Florida, for example, and then turn around and reimport it from somewhere else. Another way of looking at this i to ask yourself, if you were a refiner in Maaysia, why would you want to pay the extra tariff for California oil? Wouldn't it be cheaper for you to buy it from a closer source?
But anyway we only need to look at the historical record to see that these assumptions are valid. If you go to the Einrgy Infomration Administration website ( http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_w.htm ), you can find US crude oil export data. You will see that the US currently exports about 25,000 barrels of oil per day (all to Canada), but has been producing about 5,100,000 barrels per day (except recently due to hurricane Ike). That's a 0.5% export ratio. Furthermore, US crude exports have held at this level since about 2002. From 1991 through 2001, crude exports averaged about 1.5% of domestic production.
How many new barrels of oil do you think the US industry has brought onstream since 2002? Since 1991? Almost none of it has been exported, and none at all from the offshore Gulf of Mexico, where a fairly large percentage of new US oil has been found.
When the data is examined critically, this popular assumption is proven to be wrong.
- hitac
September 27, 2008 10:32AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
1
1
1
0
0
0
Biweekly updates on new debates and experts
Please check your email to confirm your subscription.
© 2008 Opposing Views, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Opposing Views, Inc. is not responsible for the content posted on this website. Please view full disclaimer under Terms
Oil Companies Sit on 68 Million US Acres That They Have Not Drilled
- From NRDC
By Natural Resources Defense Council - The Earth's Best Defense
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Drill where the oil is, not just because you the lease
This whole argument about the 68 million acres is aimed at the idiot constituency who believe anything that is repeated enough times by the media and special interest groups.
I could go look for my keys over on the table where the light is good, but I already know they are in the room with the locked door, and I don't have the key. My wife has the key, so I guess I have to wait until she gets home.
Congress holds the key to lower retail gas prices for consumers, but the party in control of congress at the moment (dems) is so beholden to special interests that they adjourned and went out on the campaign trail without giving us the keys. I say throw the bums out.
- joelinda September 14, 2008 8:36AM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Are you joking?
Democrats submitted a reasonable bill giving oil companies more leases 50 miles off shore if the states want it (states rights), use American made equipment and labor, end oil tax subsidies and invest in alternative energies (funny, oil company advertisements say they are doing just that). Republicans don't like it and Bush might have to veto it. So much for the emergency Congress was supposed to stay and work on. I say we are throwing the bums out.
- tjhawknest33
September 23, 2008 7:31PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Throw all the bums out, Dems and Repubs
The dems have controlled congress for the last few years and are only just now doing anything. I say, vote out all incumbents and make the special interests buy off a whole new batch. Then throw them out in two more years. Rinse and Repeat.
- joelinda September 23, 2008 9:31PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
You are partly right...
Dems have been in "control" for 2 years with the most fillabusters in history carried out in those two years. Trent Lott was quite up-front about thier intentions when he said they were going to roadblock everything and then run against the do-nothing Congress. Rinsing and repeating is wasting too much shampoo when we could buy the good stuff at the salon and go to publicly funded campaign finance. This would gain us a seat at the table. Right now we can't afford the wood. If you aren't living in a cave you are seeing on the TV and internets that the lobbyists and corporations are about to pull off the biggest heist in history. That 3 page document was an equivelent to a stick-up.
- tjhawknest33
September 25, 2008 8:51PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Good points, but I still believe we need to drill more here.
The lobbyists get their power from contributing to the re-election campaigns of incumbents. If we change the culture of US voters to one of voting out the incumbent, then the lobbyists would lose much of their leverage. Lobbying in its current form is the real evil of US politics.
Meanwhile, drill more in the US. Build nuclear, coal, and wind farm power plants. Find ways to make ethanol and bio-diesel from non-food materials like algae, weeds, and wood. Also, convert fleets to natural gas. Just a serious threat of backing for any of these initiatives, will have an immediate impact on the futures and spot markets for oil.
- joelinda September 28, 2008 4:11PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
The Inactive Lease Fallacy
This post by the NRDC shows that it does not understand basic concepts of the exploration process.
Some reasons for inactive leases:
1) Your prospect covers 300 acres, but the lease it sits on covers 2385 acres. The lessor does not want to subdivide it. You lease all of it or none of it.
2) You lease a trend. You have an idea for a prospect, and you see a group of them lying in a given area. You lease all of them now to ensure that competitors don't outbid you for the others if your first one is a success. You don't drill them all at once, even if you could. You drill one, you learn from it, if it works, you drill more.
3) Some leases are actually owned outright by oil companies. They may have historical origins, such as old railroad right of way grants or land swaps. They may not be prospective, and the mineral rights may therefore have little or no market value.
4)It takes time and costs a lot of money to drill prospects. You have to locate rigs, you have to allocate funds from the budget. You can't do everything at once. It might take a year or more to secure a rig contract.
5) Many companies are staff constrained due to massive industry layoffs throughout the 1980's 90's and early 2000's (20 years of relatively poor oil company performance). This can cause drilling schedules to slip. I know of many cases of this. It's real.
6) Your company ranks prospects, and some fall at the bottom. Those leases may sit idle while you try to sell them, or until you get to the bottom of the pile. It acn easily take a year to locate a buyer and sign a contract.
7) you've drilled a dry hole in one prospect, and you have leases on similar adjacent prospects. You decide they are too risky and you don't want to drill them. You hold the acreage until it expires, or the next rental payment is due.
Others could identify many more reasons.
Additionally, you seem to think that there is a simple linear formula that relates lease surface area to oil reserves. But the reality is that some leases are better than others. If Acme Oil has 10,000 acres onshore, and its best prospect may have 5 million barrels, and it finds after a successful bid that it could drill a lease offshore California for a 500 million barrel prospect, what do you think they's do?
You claim that an environmental disaster is a certainty. Yes since the 1969 spill, over 7200 wells have been drilled in offshore California without one serious spill incident. 80,000 wells have been drilled in the offshore Gulf of Mexico, and I know of no serious spills due to drilling on the American side. The risks are not zero, but you wildly exaggerate them.
You say that the 10 year time frame is a reason not to drill. So you must believe we shouldn't have drilled on the North Slope, or in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The UK shouldn't have drilled the North Sea, and Brazil is acting foolishly in their deepwater plays. If it benefits our children, and not us, it shouldn't be done. Correct?
You pose this as an either/or debate. Oil or alternatives. But the DOE you quote also says that oil consumption will be rising steadily through 2030. Meanwhile alternative energy companies, with huge incentives for success (taking OPEC's market share?) are getting mountains of cash. Both can go on in parallel. In fact, legislation could be written to allocate offshore royalties and bonus bids to alternative energy research. Why not?
What we really need in the energy debate is informed contributors looking at all possible solutions, and contributors who are able to think critically. Those who attempt to make arguments on subjects they don't understand, or who attempt to frame a real and serious problem in the simplistic 1960's language of good guys and bad guys, like the NRDC, are not helping anyone.
- hitac
September 26, 2008 5:42PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Selfish
If oil companies have sufficient oil inland, it is a purely selfish act to stake out oil fields offshore to insure their continued profit.
- Joseph
February 10, 2009 8:34AM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Uncommitted
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.