While We Dither On Oil, It's Drill, Beijing, Drill

IBD editorials ^ | April 11, 2012

[raptor22]

Energy Policy: A Chinese oil company is now the world's top producer. While we sleep and watch pump prices rise, China, India and even Cuba seek supplies the world over, including drilling off the Florida coast.

Global demand for oil is rising, as is its global price, as energy-hungry economies such as China, India and Brazil scour the earth for oil they know will be the energy of the present for some time to come.

Even those lacking their own technology are asking others to help them get more. For them, there is no such thing as "peak oil."

The U.S., however, stands alone as the only major country not actively seeking new supplies.

Less than two years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion of a single rig virtually shut down our efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, a Chinese rig built for a Spanish company, Repsol, has begun exploratory drilling for oil off Cuba as close as 50 miles to Key West, Fla. The Scarabeo 9 rig will drill at a depth of 6,000 feet underwater. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill happened at a shallower depth of 5,500 feet.

The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated the North Cuban Basin contains as much as 9 billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Other estimates range from 5 billion to 20 billion barrels.

Pools of oil and natural gas tend not to obey lines drawn on a map. It is certain that at least some of Cuba's wells will be tapping oil pools that straddle the boundary separating our zone from theirs, meaning Havana will be getting oil that should be ours.

[factoryrat]

Everybody in the world can drill for oil and gas, except for the US! That really speaks volumes about what our fedgov is up to. It has nothing to do with the enviroment, or supply, or big business, or world markets. It’s all about power, and the methods that the feds will employ to gain total control of all energy production and usage in the US. If you control energy in the US, the entire economy will be at your mercy.

[af_vet_rr]

Everybody in the world can drill for oil and gas, except for the US! That really speaks volumes about what our fedgov is up to.

If you want some irony, back in 2010, Rick Perry went over to China and lobbied hard for the Chinese to come over and buy into Texas oilfields. They did - they are spending billions on Texas oilfields, and 10s of thousands of new jobs were created or retained.

[clearcarbon]

I was wondering what that “giant sucking sound” was.