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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.

I think that you are forgetting that leases have been granted at a rate of over 350% since 1998, and these leases have, as yet, not been properly surveyed AT ALL.

They DO NOT WANT TO DRILL. The cheaper they make oil, the less profit they make, the cheaper their assets and net worth become. They need to CONTROL these leases - they certainly do not need to exploit them.

Where did you hear that they returned “sizeable amounts of leased property?” I had heard that they sold leases on almost 5000 acres of US land that they HAD NOT SURVEYED to third party exploration firms working under the Chevron brand, but that is it, as far as I know...

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.

Thanks for posting that.

They don't lease oil fields, and then fail to drill. They lease land to test for oil, and then return the lease when oil is not found.

Thank you so much for the explanation. I was wondering what the Liberals were going on about.

"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."

Can you provide a cite to back that up? The best I could come up with is this excerpt from:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/egom/egomfax.html

"In 1990, President George H. Bush signed an Executive Order canceling Sale 116, Part II, and excluding the area south of 26° N. latitude and east of 86° W. longitude from leasing consideration until after the year 2000. In October 1995, 73 oil and gas leases located south of 26° N. latitude were relinquished back to the Federal Government as part of a litigation settlement.

Consequently, no active Federal natural gas and oil leases exist off southwest Florida. Likewise, no active leases exist in the Straits of Florida Planning Area or off Florida’s east coast (South Atlantic Planning Area)."

Thanks. I'd like to smack down those "68 mil acres" rat talking points.