Drill here, drill now: Answering the "won't help now" response

TigerHawk ^ | 6/29/2008

[shove_it]

The chief practical argument coming from those who oppose opening our continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling is that it will take ten years to get the oil so it will not have any impact on current oil prices. The response is that is factual and analytical hogwash, insofar as the whole point of futures markets is to discount the impact of changes in future supply.

It is also, by the way, reasoning that many on the left would not want applied to their own pet project:

My response to those who say that increased drilling is pointless because it won't yield immediate results -- like Arnold Schwarzenegger --is why worry about the greenhouse effect, then? Nothing we do will cool the planet immediately. Yet we're told immediate action there is vital. In fact, we're told that by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the very same speech.

One would have thought that this point was so obvious it would not have to be made at all. But then, one would also think it obvious that a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies would reduce the supply of oil in the future, since we have empirical evidence from the Carter fiasco that it will, yet Barack Obama continues to push the idea. That the mainstream media refuses to call Obama to account for the obvious impact of "don't drill, do tax!" on gasoline prices reveals them as utterly unthinking or completely in the tank for the guy. It is hard to know which it might be. Maybe it's both!

[Southack]

Drilling here now creates high-paying jobs today that must go on for at least ten years, per the liberals, since it takes that long to get the oil...

[bray]

Every $ we keep here is one less for our enemies.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[Conspiracy Guy]

I tell high school seniors to forget about college. It will take 4 years or more and cost them money.

It is therefore a waste of time.

[Bobkk47]

The libs keep saying “We can’t drill our way out of high gasoline prices.” That’s like telling a guy who hasn’t eaten anything for a week that he can’t eat his way out of starvation.

[xcamel]

Biggest lie in the book...

“US announces open drilling and exploration in continental and Alaskan ranges including offshore reserves”

2 days later...

“OPEC announces 1M bbl a day increase in production - oil drops $50/BBL...”

[o_zarkman44]

We have heard the same tired arguement about new domestic supply being unavailable for 10 years...... 10 and 20 years ago.

Nothing has changed because the government don’t want it to change. The opinion of the people don’t count.
So I say vote the bums out! Every last one of them!

[river rat]

Oil supplies and the effect of more oil, will come a hell of a lot quicker and cheaper that ANY other alternative energy source.

[JoanneSD]

If in fact it will take 10 years or more to get oil out.. I say we tell the democrats, using their own talking point “DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN’

[milky]

Is everyone at FR like-minded on this issue? How may people here know the FACTS?

I’m wondering why, with 33 million acres of offshore already leased to oil and gas companies, are they not drilling THERE, already? They are only drilling some 17% of it, currently. There are a reported 25 billion barrels available, and they are not drilling A SINGLE BARREL OF IT.

Why do they want to drill in ANWR and offshore where there is a moritorium? They do not WANT to drill in ANWR - or anywhere else, OBVIOUSLY. What they DO want to do is consolidate assets and continue to hold these leases and limit the amount of drilling on them in order to both control and increase the price of oil for their own profits and purposes. Over the last eight years, drilling leases issued for development of public lands in the USA increased by more than 350%. Ask yourself - whose assets will increase more if domestic oil is NOT DRILLED in the USA? OPEC’s, or the “Seven Sisters’s”

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I tell high school seniors to forget about college. It will take 4 years or more and cost them money.

Or what I told them at the gun shop: "Two weeks? But I'm angry NOW!"

[Elle Bee]

I heard someone say that by this liberal logic you should stop at the nearest kindergarten and tell the kids to drop out because what they're doing today will have no effect on their employment potential for well over ten years

.

[Jeff Head]

If we seriously announced, and then started drilling in ANWR, off the Gulf Coast, off the Paicifc Coast, and going for the Oil Shales...and did so by Executive Order so everything was expedited and the severe environmental holdups could be expedited...watch what OPEC would do.

It would help now because OPEC would be forced to try and get out in front of this and make it economically unfeasable for us to do so.

They owuld do that by slashing prices drastically and immediatyely.

If we did this...if we as a people would put politicians in place who had the will...our will...to do this, I predict that within six months we would see prices at the pump below $2 per gallon.

But we have to defeat the charlatain Obama who is telling us that 4 and 6 dollar a gallon fuel is actually good for us...if it would only happen a little slower. That we canot drive our SUVs, that we cannot keep thermostats at 72 degrees, etc., etc.

His way is the way of abject governmental controls...and that is not surprising because the man is an abject marxist.

THE GREAT SEAL OF OBAMANATION

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

[bolobaby]

Here is the answer to the “drilling won’t lower the price of oil” argument:

Digging for diamonds won’t lower the price of diamonds so - despite the fact to you have diamonds on your property - you shouldn’t dig for them. Especially when diamonds are at an all time high value. Whatever you do, don’t mine those diamonds out of your ground and enrich yourself, your community, and your country. That would be stupid.

Instead, here’s what you do: let those diamonds rot. Send all of your current diamond money to South Africa. Spend billions on developing new technology that will make diamonds worthless so that the diamonds you have in your ground will be worth nothing. This will take decades, but you can just keep shipping billions of dollars to South Africa to the point where they start buying up treasured U.S. landmarks like the Chrysler Building. Or worse, they buy the bank that owns the mortgage on your house and land (say, Citigroup) so that they really end up owning those diamonds anyway.

Brilliant.

[shove_it]

I guess that’s why Exxon announced they were getting out of the retail gasoline business - there’s too much money in it.

[bolobaby]

Milky - fine. Don’t give the oil leases to the oil giants. Give them to me. Believe me, I’ll start drilling and get rich and help the country.

If this is a real argument, then Congress can simply say “we aren’t going to allow any small group of companies to monopolize these resources. They are too important of an asset. So, if you are holding any undeveloped oil leases, you can’t bid.”

Believe me, I could easily find investment to drill the CRAP out of ANWR.

[buckalfa]

The impact of drill here, drill now would be psychological in that it might knock some of the steam out of speculation and economic warfare being waged by OPEC.

Seven to ten years waiting for tangible product seems reasonable given the lead times needed for R&D and acquiring equipment.

The troubling question that has been posed to me by co-workers is that even if all obstacles to drilling and refining would disappear overnight, would the oil companies invest in American production if they could get a better return at less cost elsewhere? Oil companies are multi-national corporations with allegience only to their balance sheets, not any one particular nation. I fear what the answer might be.

[LOC1]

It will not take ten years, but if it did, it would be ten years from now, or ten years from tomorrow, or ten years from whenever we start. The amount of time it takes is the same, only the delay in starting varies.

[Flycatcher]

I just hate capitalists that want to make money. And, yes, that was sarcasm, Milky.

(Your post was sarcasm too, right?)

[LOC1]

Where do you think the 5 million barrels of oil per day being produced within the US today came from? It came from oil companies finding and producing oil on US lands.

The oil companies have a long history of finding and producing when the reserves are actually there. Just because they have oil leases currently on federal land, does not mean that oil is under that land. All the oil companies did was pay for the right to look for oil, and the right to profit from it if they found any.

Chevron, for instance, has returned sizable amounts of leased property back to the federal government, because they looked for, and did not find, oil under on those leases. Chevron paid for the leases, incurred the expense of looking for the oil, concluded there was none available and then returned the leases. All it did was make money for the federal government.

[bray]

Its called Energy Planning. Something America hasn't had in 30 years since it has been run by Baby Boomers. If we all ride bicycles and Choo Choo Trains while we heat our houses w/Windmills and Sugarplum Fairies all will be well. Maybe its time for the Baby to grow up?
If you like $5/gal, Thank Congress

Pray for W and Our Troops

[wildbill]

Nothing is going to help next week or even next year.

The Congress has waffled on an energy policy since 1970s.

You have to start sometime to build a reasonable policy that will produce results. So far, most alternative energy technologies are pie-in-the-sky hopes without feasible results.

[river rat]

If the cost of oil can be brought down to it’s “justifiable” cost in the range of $20/40 bbl — I frankly don’t care where it comes from.....

I would like to think that our history of having developed oil fields and equipment “nationalized” by foreign thugs - has taught us a lesson to apply OUR TECHNOLOGY to OUR resources....

With no end in sight to the level of blackmail that OPEC can ask — it’s insane to not pursue all national resources of oil/coal until the “greenies” can come up with their alternative source in about 20 years.

The Communist “Greenies” in the U.S. and the DNC are partners in forcing this artificial shortage and price climb — to SERVE THEIR OWN POLITICAL POWER goal..

NOTHING the nation needs to address this problem will be approved by a Democrat controlled congress while a Republican President is in the White House.

[oyez]

I believe that to be correct.

I'm tired of this country acting like an invalid.

My late father used to quote, “Once this country sets it mind, there is nothing it can't do.” I believe him to be right, however, “Setting the mind” has become the most impossible part of that statement.

[Flycatcher]

So far, most alternative energy technologies are pie-in-the-sky hopes without feasible results.

And yet the Democrats in power seem to be willing to wait half a century for these technologies to become more feasible, yet they can't bring themselves to wait 3-10 years to have new offshore and ANWR oil leases pumped, produced, and distributed.

Their patience comes and goes, doesn't it?

[Conspiracy Guy]

Alabama has no waiting period just the background check. Usually your in and out in minutes.

[Clint Lippo]

milky-6/19/08

[Current Occupant]

I would like to think that our history of having developed oil fields and equipment “nationalized” by foreign thugs - has taught us a lesson to apply OUR TECHNOLOGY to OUR resources....

Exactly, Aramco comes to mind.

[buckalfa]

I tend to agree with you— however I think the ability to be “Fortress America” has been sold down the river by both political parties and global corporate interests.

One cannot argue with the wealth that free trade and globilizaton has brought our nation. However that largess comes with a price: the ability to act unilaterally.

[Gumdrop]

An even simpler concept is to apply it to education of children. After all, why spend so much money and time on educating a child when the payoff will not be for 15-20 years? So, why start it? It’s a good one to throw at liberals since they are so beholden to the education mafia.

Democrats only understand infrastructure as it applies to highways, bridges and schools. The concept of building infrastructure in military, energy, and even maintaining a healthy birthrate, is foreign to them.

It’s so easy to see how idiotic the liberal position is - keep aborting the babies, and eventually we’ll have no schools, no taxpayers, no nothing. Same with military - no military and out goes our freedoms; likewise, no energy, and we all go bankrupt as the economy collapses.

[Mogollon]

Drilling now puts a damper on speculators and long-term futures. Prices should come down almost immediately if the moratorium on drilling the OCS, ANWR, etc., was lifted.

Also, one of the Oil Company experts mentioned to Sean Hannity that they could get oil to the markets in 1 year if the drilling ban was lifted.

[2harddrive]

It won’t take 10 years, but so what if it did? I remember them using that SAME sick argument 10 yeras sgo, in 1998! And before that, in 1988, after the oil tanker wars. And even in 1978, when Carter wanted to shut the Christmas lights off.

[2harddrive]

3-D seismic shows the fields where they have not yet drilled don’t contain formations large enough to justify the cost. Now you know someone in the industry.

[RSmithOpt]

In the meantime, our government works to slip in legislation or department find a reason for ‘a study’ to thwart all domestic production increases of oil, natural gas, refinery capacity, and renewable resources other than burning our food.

[CyberAnt]

O’Reilly had some guy on his program last night who said that some oil rigs are already in place in some of the areas where there is oil .. and they could be up and pumping in LESS THAN A YEAR.

Hmmmm ..?? The dumocrats would lie about it taking 5-10 years - would they ..?? Why would they want to keep us poor, ill informed, out of work, 3rd world-like ..????

The democrats/liberals remind me of a husband who keeps his wife barefoot and pregnant - in order to maintain total control of her. I don’t think most women are buying that kind of control anymore .. and neither is the American public.

[RSmithOpt]

Exactly...they will use the excuse of higher fuel and food costs to justify them raising taxes to create more bloat and useless programs.

[Red_Devil 232]

You are right. Typically the oil companies will bid on thousands of Federal lease acreage, win the bid and pay the price, and if they are lucky a few of those acres will show promise after very expensive 3-D seismic exploration. Off shore exploration of Federal leases is expensive but easier to access. Federal leased lands on shore are very expensive and much more complicated to explore seismically.

[DPMD]

Passing an $845 billion “Global Poverty Act” tax increase won’t fix poverty RIGHT NOW.

Raising $43 trillion for the UN won’t cure global warming RIGHT NOW. (nor will it end UN corruption right now.)

Ending the “Bush tax cuts” won’t give us good government RIGHT NOW.

Cutting the Department of Defense budget, and retreating from Iraq won’t give us world peace RIGHT NOW.

Passing McCain-Feingold won’t give us campaign finance reform and honest government RIGHT NOW.

Never mind, we know.

[kcvl]

I’m wondering why, with 33 million acres of offshore already leased to oil and gas companies, are they not drilling THERE, already?

Because there is not oil on all 33 million acres! You don't just go drill a hole anywhere and find oil!

How Stuff Works:

Finding Oil

The task of finding oil is assigned to geologists, whether employed directly by an oil company or under contract from a private firm. Their task is to find the right conditions for an oil trap -- the right source rock, reservoir rock and entrapment. Many years ago, geologists interpreted surface features, surface rock and soil types, and perhaps some small core samples obtained by shallow drilling. Modern oil geologists also examine surface rocks and terrain, with the additional help of satellite images. However, they also use a variety of other methods to find oil. They can use sensitive gravity meters to measure tiny changes in the Earth's gravitational field that could indicate flowing oil, as well as sensitive magnetometers to measure tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic field caused by flowing oil. They can detect the smell of hydrocarbons using sensitive electronic noses called sniffers. Finally, and most commonly, they use seismology, creating shock waves that pass through hidden rock layers and interpreting the waves that are reflected back to the surface.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-drilling1.htm

[Tatze]

http://www.cafepress.com/drillnow

http://www.AmericanSolutions.com

1,215,278 signatures so far!!

[RightWingConspirator]

(milky Since Jun 19, 2008)

You obviously do not know or understand much about oil exploration and drilling, especially deep water exploration and drilling where much of the 33 million acres you refer to are located. The fact is that you cannot just punch a hole into a leased parcel on the sea bed and expect to hit oil, just as you cannot do that on surface land. You first must map the underlying formations and make the best determination where, if any, oil reservoirs exist. Following that you will need to map the seabed to determine what infrastrucure is needed to pump, collect and retrieve the crude that is located.

If you had read the Wall Street Journal article several days ago that explained that, you might have not written your post. The article explained that, until the lessee has a producing well on a parcel--regardless if he has been actively exploring and surveying the parcel for the past five years, the government considers the parcel to be inactive--thus the disinformation the past week emanating from the Democrats. It does sound like, however, that you have already made up your mind and no amount of fact will change it.

[kcvl]

3-D seismic shows the fields where they have not yet drilled don’t contain formations large enough to justify the cost.

And we wonder why the same idiots keep getting elected when they say things exactly like "with 33 million acres of offshore already leased to oil and gas companies, are they not drilling THERE, already? They are only drilling some 17% of it".

I have heard the same leftist dribble talking points on every 'news' show I turned on.

Press Here Harry Reid's talking points.

"33 Million Outer Continental Shelf Acres Under Lease Are NOT Being Drilled. There are 33 million acres of the federal OCS lands that are under lease but are not producing."

[shove_it]

Here are facts - check it out:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037974/posts

I would much rather American money go the “Seven Sisters” than OPEC. Google “OPEC members” for a list of these wonderful countries. The “Seven Sisters” may scam me some but they won't blow up my town or saw off my head.

Welcome to Free Republic. I'm keepin’ an eye on you, eh.

[RightWingConspirator]

I talked to my Sis in Idaho yesterday and she was telling me about a proposed nuclear plant somewhere near Mountain Home. It seems that the anti-nuclear moonbats have already come out of the woodwork and are screaming that the project will “poison generations of children” and are promising lawsuit after lawsuit to stop the project.

[count-your-change]

“Is everyone at FR like-minded on this issue? How may people here know the FACTS?”
No.
Most.
“They are only drilling some 17% of it, currently”
There isn't oil in every square foot of the lease?
Every square foot hasn't been explored?
Leases areas are large areas POTENTIALLY containing oil?
“Why do they want to drill in ANWR and offshore where there is a moritorium? They do not WANT to drill in ANWR - or anywhere else, OBVIOUSLY. What they DO want to do is consolidate”
Pick one or the other, either the oil companies DO want to drill or they DON'T. And nothing has kept them from consolidating in the past (they have already, Exxon-Mobil?).
“...continue to hold these leases and limit the amount of drilling on them in order to both control and increase the price of oil for their own profits and purposes.”
Non-producingg leases are often let go but with the price of oil up it's worthwhile to purchase more leases. Oil in ground is worthless without the capital to bring it to market hence producers take in lots of money and spend lots of it to bring in more oil.
“Ask yourself - whose assets will increase more if domestic oil is NOT DRILLED in the USA? OPEC’s, or the “Seven Sisters’s”
Opec’s. Price goes up on increased demand. Domestic oil in ground is worthless unless it can be brought to market.
My turn for a question. Would you compare logic to a cat fish in murky waters or to a shovel handle wrapped in tape and rosined up?

[kcvl]

"Why drill in ANWR?"

Why Not?!!!!

[wideminded]

I guess that’s why Exxon announced they were getting out of the retail gasoline business - there’s too much money in it.

Exxon doesn't need the retail gasoline business. They can make all their money on the wholesale end. The retail gasoline business only accounts for a few cents of profit on a gallon of gas.

[kcvl]

There are several other reasons the coastal plain is distinct from the rest of the ANWR. It is not part of the hills and mountains of the Brooks Range, where the environmentalists take their beautiful photos of the ANWR. It is a flat, treeless, almost featureless plain in northeastern Alaska that extends from the Brooks Range northward to the Beaufort Sea. There are times on the coastal plain when exposing human flesh to the elements would ensure death. The temperature can drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit in January. Few animals can thrive in those temperatures.

Only five species of birds, some polar bears (who den on the Beaufort Sea pack ice) and lemmings (who burrow beneath the snow-pack) remain during the winter months. There are 56 days of total darkness during the year, and almost nine months of harsh winter.

The spring thaw comes in late May or early June. This increases the bird count and brings back the arctic fox and, most significantly, the Porcupine caribou. While only a portion of the caribou herd shows up each year, many environmental activists refer to the coastal plain as their traditional calving grounds. The females endure the conditions of the tundra for protection against most predators and for the cotton grass that will help to fatten their offspring.

The caribou travel to the coastal plain from Canada, passing near 89 dry wells drilled by the Canadian government and crossing Canada's Dempster Highway--all of which seems to be development that does not hinder theirmigration or survival.

Our only experiment with oil fields and caribou has taken place nearby on Alaska's North Slope in Prudhoe Bay. The Central Arctic caribou herd that inhabits part of Prudhoe Bay has grown from 6,000 in 1978 to 19,700 today, according to the most recent estimates by state and federal wildlife agencies.

In fact, there is some evidence that the caribou use un-vegetated and elevated sites such as river bars, mud flats, dunes, gravel pads and roads in the existing oil fields as relief habitat from mosquitoes and from oestrid flies that attack their nostrils. The 1995 legislation vetoed by President Clinton would have given the secretary of Interior the power to stop development and exploration during the summer months if there were any threat to the caribou.

Environmentalists also worry about the polar bear, though most biologists will tell you that the bears rarely den on land in this region, preferring the arctic ice. Alaska's polar bear population is healthy and unthreatened. The Marine Mammals Protection Act takes care of the polar bear in the existing oil fields--and would do the same on the coastal plain.

Senator Frank H. Murkowski (AK)

Press Here for more...

"Drill Here. Drill Now. Save Money."

[sloop]

10 years, 5 years, 1 year, 1 day - whatever

a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step

since the democrats have no other solution, they need to shut up and let the adults try *something*

let exxon take those ‘obscene profits’ they earned and place it at risk by drilling where the oil is known to be - not on the ‘68 million acres’ where there is no oil

the democrats are preventing us from getting the oil and lowering prices - and taking a gamble that the voters are not smart enough to understand that - what scares me is that the gamble might pay off for them

[Christopher Lincoln]

Or ten years from never, which is what the no-drilling crowd has in mind.