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A World Affloat on an Ocean of Oil
usadaily.com ^ | 06/15/2008 | Alan Caruba

Posted on 06/15/2008 8:12:08 AM PDT by kellynla

Considering how much untapped oil is known to exist, not just in the United States, but worldwide, one would think that its current price was some kind of anomaly and it is. It is more the result of speculation than anything else.

The most fundamental fact about oil worldwide is that there is lots of it. Though frequently overlooked, the ability to refine crude oil plays an essential role in the supply and demand equation. More refining capacity is needed worldwide. Finally, there’s the fact that, in general, oil is very expensive to get at and often found in the most inhospitable places on Earth.

For sheer insanity, however, consider a nation that has an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil offshore of its coasts and 117 billion barrels of oil under land owned or managed by the government, plus 139 billion barrels beneath privately held land.

In just one area, a desolate place designated a wildlife refuge, there’s an estimated 7.7 billion barrels untapped. The nation with this abundance of oil is, of course, the United States of America. Most of the areas where oil is known to exist have been ruled off-limits to any exploration or extraction by the government.

In the areas where it is accessible, drilling for it is hugely encumbered and often denied by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.

If, however, you connect the dots, you will have noticed by now that America’s energy problems, namely the price of a gallon of gasoline or heating oil, is making everyone miserable thanks in great part to environmental legislation designed to make it impossible to access oil on both public and privately held lands. Then, just to make matters worse, the government requires that every gallon of gasoline include the additive, ethanol, which reduces its mileage and increases its cost.

Further, we’re told that Sen. Barack Obama, if elected, intends to seize “windfall profits.” This is sufficient reason for American oil companies to decide to drill anywhere else. The last time a windfall profits tax was implemented was at the end of President Carter’s term. It had such a negative impact on U.S. oil companies that drilling for oil domestically dropped dramatically. It has stayed that way since the 1980s. Their actual profits are now less than pharmaceutical, high tech, and other elements of the economy. Imagine how thrilled they were to hear Rep. Maxine Waters’ threat to nationalize them.

No profits. No exploration. No drilling. And no domestic oil with which to correct our dependence on foreign oil and thus provide a measure of security to a nation that runs on oil.

If you wanted to bring the United States to ruin, you could not have designed and implemented a more perfect scheme. Along with too many members of Congress, environmentalists are America’s Fifth Column.

As my friend, Seldon B. Graham, a veteran petroleum engineer and oil industry attorney, and a graduate of West Point says of oil, says “If it is worth dying for in the Near East, it is worth drilling for in the United States.”

As to the claim that the Earth is running out of oil, that can be easily dismissed simply by reading information available in respected publications such as Business Week. Its June 9 edition reported the Saudis “already plan to increase production by 300,000 barrels a day in June for a total of 9.45 barrels to meet customer demand. Unlike the U.S., “The Saudis have embarked on an ambitious expansion program that should see more than 2 million barrels of new production capacity come onstream by the middle of next year.”

Those of us who follow energy trends read the Energy Tribune because it has some of the best information available on what is really occurring. In its May edition, Matt Pickard wrote about the expansion worldwide of offshore drilling, noting that today’s prices are being driven by increased demand from rapidly developing nations such as China and India. This demand is going to increase over the next two or three decades.

Unless the United States begins to free up its own oil and natural gas reserves, Americans are going to be paying more at the pump and in their homes for a very long time to come.

The good news is that the offshore oil and gas industry, despite the huge risks and costs involved and despite an aging, understaffed workforce, is making strides to meet demand. Whether it’s in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, the icy waters of the Barents Sea or offshore of Brazil and Africa, massive new reserves of oil are being found.

“Large discoveries offshore Brazil, the continued progress in every region’s major projects, and the ongoing push for Arctic exploration and production point to the industry’s potential for growth over the next 20 to 30 years,” wrote Pickard. Brazil is poised to become a major producer. In its Tupi field, “Petrobas announced an aggressive development plan, with an early production system possible within two or three years,” reports Pickard. The nearby Jupiter field has gas reserves to rival Tupi.

None of this is a secret! Both privately owned U.S. and foreign national oil companies are going to find more oil and gas.

Neither candidate for President is telling the truth these days because both believe global warming is real and both keep blathering on about “alternative” energy. The big problem for the rest of us is that you can’t pour wind or solar energy into a gas tank.

The U.S. mandate for ethanol as a gasoline additive has already significantly put the world’s food supply in jeopardy, but most Americans are blissfully unaware that it requires 1.5 gallons of ethanol to produce the same energy as a gallon of gasoline. It actually emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline. It is an environmental hoax.

The world is afloat an ocean of oil. Meanwhile, the United States continues to rule 85% of its offshore oil off-limits to exploration and extraction. This is occurring while the Chinese prepare to pump oil just offshore of Cuba, a merely 90 miles from Florida. It is occurring while the Russians are looking to plant their flag on potential reserves of subterranean oil in the Arctic.

The next time you hear a politician say we need to be “energy independent”, ask him or her why Americans cannot have access to the oil reserves known to exist in California, in Alaska, and in many of our other States or off the coastlines of Florida and elsewhere.

Ask them why the fate of the condors and little known species is more important than the family budget of Americans forced to make choices between more food and more gasoline.

Ask them why they continue to claim that global warming is a threat when the entire Earth is now in a decade-old cooling cycle.

Ask them why they insist on blaming investor-owned oil companies whose own reserves are barely four percent of the all the oil that exists worldwide? Ask them how they expect these oil companies to compete in the global marketplace when they threaten to seize their profits.

Energy is the master resource. It determines which nations thrive and which lag behind. For now, America is being ill-served by a Congress that refuses to permit access our own energy resources.

Ask yourself how we have arrived at a point in time when both candidates for President believe in a non-existent global warming and whose proposals offer no practical solution to our current and future energy needs.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: economy; energy; energyfacts; energyprices; energysecurity; environment; obama; oil; opec; trade; windfall
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To: SunkenCiv

You are quite welcome.

I want FREEPERS, OF ALL FOLKS, TO WAKE UP!


101 posted on 06/18/2008 12:45:42 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: Quix

Thanks for the ping..........


102 posted on 06/18/2008 1:56:14 PM PDT by Las Vegas Dave ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Now Obama's plan!)
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To: Las Vegas Dave

Certainly.


103 posted on 06/18/2008 6:05:44 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
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To: SAJ
If you don't mind, I think I shall pass on any association with you at this point, I cant say that it has been a pleasure. You insist on not seeing my point, I doubt you are incapable of understanding it. I just suspect that to hurt someone is more valuable to you than life itself.

There is a scripture that teaches about this that says, "Do not cast your pearls before swine, for they will trample them in the mud and turn and rend you." I am not calling you a pig, but you sure fit the profile.

Perhaps you see your evil foe in me, and have simply over reacted. I am willing to give you that. But I grow tired of trying to hold a conversation with a sharp tongued disagreeable old fart that shows more wit connected to his tongue than his ears.

If you insist on believing that what is making the markets go up is people speculating on the price instead of supply and demand and the falling dollar, your "wisdom" misserves you. But as I have been warning all along, the Politicians are going to use your lack of ability to communicate to the Joe on the street to take away your freedom to trade.

Goodbye

104 posted on 06/21/2008 9:45:55 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: American in Israel

Oil is the Islamic world’s weapon. The goal is to destroy us and take control for Sharia law and the moon god, allah.


105 posted on 06/28/2008 10:13:51 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: Quix

That is one amazing collection of quotes, Quix!


106 posted on 06/28/2008 10:18:07 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: MHGinTN

Thanks for checking them out.

Did you find them believable? Were they more sobering than you expected?

What responses did you have?

Those are the kinds of quotes from such folks that I was reading in 1965.

Imagine knowing all this was coming down the pike since then.

. . . and really knowing that such would reach it’s peak during most likely, my lifetime.


107 posted on 06/28/2008 10:25:14 PM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Quix
First, it is human nature (in modern man anyway) to have conspiracy thoughts.

Second, as a Christian, you know that there IS a conspiracy, a spiritual conspiracy of mutany, to try and destroy that which God loves.

Third, if the human species continues to survive as is into the next 100 to 150 years, a collective process of some sort will be necessary meet and defeat the catastrophes the planet will undergo and may be able to forestall.

Lastly (for now), if anyone doubts that the Arabs holding the world by the oil throat have a plan to become the controlling force on this planet, well, they are naive. Goons like bin Laden are but dupes for the behind the scenes power brokers ... but they are deaqly dupes, bloodthirsty and evil to the core. In the long run, the oil sheiks/barons will be the most effective means Satan has for world control. The alternative will be starvation.

108 posted on 06/28/2008 10:39:05 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: Quix

Oh my, I’m trying to listen to Ian Punnit while typing ... mutiny, not mutany.


109 posted on 06/28/2008 10:41:31 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: MHGinTN

Thanks for your kind and perceptive responses.

The world will not go on as it has heretofore.

There are a number of curves that will reach their apex in our era—many of them having to do with END TIMES BIBLICAL PROPHETIC ISSUES AND PREDICTIONS.

The die is cast.

There may be minor delays in some minor respects here and there due to prayer and fasting and right living of a neighborhood, city, region or rarely even a country. On the whole, judgment is the planet’s lot, not that far ahead.

The massive END TIMES object lessons for ALL CREATION are just ahead.


110 posted on 06/29/2008 4:18:47 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Quix
From your #76

"A scientific world society cannot be stable unless there is a world government."(Bertrand Russell)

So in essence,those who practically deny the existance of the supernatural will end up handing the world on a silver platter to a supernatural entity.

111 posted on 06/29/2008 5:09:32 AM PDT by mitch5501 (Top of the world Ma!)
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To: mitch5501
So in essence,those who practically deny the existance of the supernatural will end up handing the world on a silver platter to a supernatural entity.

YUP

WELL PUT.

Some sources indicate . . . with some reading between the lines on my part . . . that:

1. The nephilium/watchers/fallen angels/ET's have convinced the globalist puppet masters that:

2. The ALMIGHTY GOD of The Bible is 'merely' head of a particular 'race' like them. And,

3. That these fallen angles WITH the puppet masters' help and sanction CAN DEFEAT GOD ALMIGHTY AT ARMAGEDDON.

4. Satan knows better . . . but it's a great strategy to trash more humans--which is as close as satan can get to throwing sand in God Almighty's eyes.

The paradoxes in all of this can be stark sometimes.

112 posted on 06/29/2008 5:14:50 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Quix
"The nephilium/watchers/fallen angels/ET's have convinced the globalist puppet masters..."

Quix FRiend,you hafta admit that is one fully-orbed hyperbolic mouthfull.Part of me wants to laugh it off as simply that.However,that part has laughed off plenty of other things I since found out were true.

May we all grow more persuaded that He is able.

God bless

113 posted on 06/29/2008 5:32:19 AM PDT by mitch5501 (Top of the world Ma!)
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To: mitch5501

INDEED, GOD IS ABLE.

GOD IS WILLING.

GOD IS ALMIGHTY.

GOD IS WORTHY.

THE KING IS COMING.

I might be incredulous, too, had I not studied it extensively since 1965.

By the time vivid overt daily CNN confirmations surface, there won’t be much opportunity for . . . protest.


114 posted on 06/29/2008 5:39:13 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: mitch5501

Actually, I disagree.

It’s not hyperbolic.

It’s very solidly research based.

It’s just not popular nor well-known.

I’ve never observed that reality was best apprehended by democratic vote nor by committee.


115 posted on 06/29/2008 5:41:02 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Quix

Indeed; Thanks.


116 posted on 07/04/2008 10:59:08 AM PDT by Dust in the Wind (Praying for Reign)
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To: mitch5501

The integrity of your honest comment is impressive. Thanks.

Actually, I found the report—wellllll actually putting several puzzle pieces together from many bits and pieces of many reports—quite convincing and not at all hyperbolic—conservatively asserted, actually.

The idea that the globalist leaders and their ‘ET’ buddies can defeat God Almighty at Armageddon has been a recurring notion in the literature increasingly over the last 1-3 years. Of course it’s nonsense. If God had idle thoughts—His idle thought’s comma alone could end the existence of all such in a flash. His Word certainly will doom the lot of them rather terminally.

There has been a barely surfacing bunch of nuance . . . hard to articulate . . . something about the globalist leaders colluding deliberately with such critters—essentially inviting them into alliances etc. which the satanic driven critters required before they could ‘legally’ complicate things by such arrangements.

I see all that as part of the GREAT END TIMES DECEPTION(s).

Actually, just reading the bare backbones outline of the Biblical prophetic END TIMES SCENARIOS . . . one could construe, imagine that such things would come to pass. There are not a lot of options. The basic outline is there.

Certainly satan has been planning his role for millenia. Certainly he and his forces are masters of deception. Certainly he originates as a prince and power of the air . . . leader of ‘principalities and powers’ of the air . . . or heavens . . . space . . .

Then there are those interesting Scriptures about out of the bowels of the earth . . . interestingly matching lots of really far fetched stories about reptilians in deep caves and tunnel systems etc. . . NOW THAT gets trippy fast.

Though I met a researcher at the last Aztec conference who insisted that at least the deep black project bases have some . . . uhhhh . . . base in fact.

Time will tell.

Walk with God. And carry a big prayer stick.


117 posted on 07/04/2008 11:09:44 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Dust in the Wind

Thank you.


118 posted on 07/04/2008 11:10:25 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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To: Quix
"Walk with God. And carry a big prayer stick."

Amen.Good advice in any circumstance.

119 posted on 07/06/2008 2:16:26 AM PDT by mitch5501 (Top of the world Ma!)
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To: Dust in the Wind

MOST WELCOME

BTTTT


120 posted on 07/06/2008 6:34:55 AM PDT by Quix (WE HAVE THE OIL NOW http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147)
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