Posted on 03/31/2012 6:19:00 AM PDT by thackney
Improving energy conservation and developing additional supplies are the key to relieving high crude prices that are driving up the cost of gasoline, Shell Oil Co. President Marvin Odum said Friday.
Odum, the top U.S. executive for Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell, spoke with the Chronicle during an appearance at the Shell-sponsored EcoMarathon. At the annual event in Houston, teams of high school and college students compete to build the most environmentally friendly vehicles.
Much of the public debate over gasoline prices has involved oil company taxes and what measures the government can take to control prices at the pump, but Odum suggested other matters are more significant.
“We think all the focus on that is actually the wrong discussion,” Odum said. “The world oil price is set outside of these companies. The question that high gasoline prices in the U.S. ought to raise is how do we impact the amount we use and how do we impact the amount we make ourselves – that is exactly where the conversation ought to go.”
Odum said that long-term price solutions will come from conservation, such as vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and from further development of U.S. energy resources, including expanded exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic.
Long-term problem
Crude priced at more than $100 a barrel may seem beneficial to the companies that sell it, Odum said, but moderation in price would be of longer-term benefit.
“The idea of prices going high to the point they start to impact the economic recovery, or they start to destroy demand for the product, is not a good thing,” Odum said.
Energy revolution?
Turning to an opposite price issue, Odum said the low price of natural gas might cause some short-term pain for Shell but could fuel a manufacturing revolution in the U.S.
Natural gas was down 2.3 cents to $2.13 per million British thermal units in trading Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange – its lowest close in more than 10 years.
“We have gone from the standpoint of thinking we were going to import to keep our systems going to being able to export, if we choose to do so, we have discovered so much,” Odum said.
Odum said that an important next step should be to develop a national energy plan, to better guide how natural gas could supplement oil as a transportation fuel.
That use is limited now by lack of natural gas fueling infrastructure and by shortages of pipeline, storage and refining capacity.
Communication crucial
Shell received regulatory approval earlier this week for its oil response drilling plans for Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, which Odum said means drilling could begin as early as July. Earlier this year, regulators approved Shell’s drilling plan for the Chukchi Sea.
Before it can begin drilling, however, the company will need permits for specific wells and an air emissions permit.
“We have seen a steady stream of approval of permits,” said Odum. “We attribute this to a lot of hard work and a lot of communication back and forth with the regulators on what we want to do and how we propose to do it in partnership with the regulators.”
Factcheck.org (tied to Obama’s Annenberg Foundation) had a piece on Yahoo News (with a paid Obama ad banner that’s on every news story for that matter) called a GOP ad false and misleading. One way they distort the truth was by saying the ad was misleading by saying Obama opposed drilling in Alaska. They did that knowing the legislation he opposed that would allow drilling in Alaska, but used this permit in Chukchi as a proof, but this itself is misleading. Other distortions were claiming Keystone is just surplus capacity as if billions are being spent to pump nothing through the pipeline. The pipeline and refining capacity will be exceeded by production of oil sands. And they still claim that Chu saying he wanted $9 a gallon gas prices has no relevance since he did it before becoming energy secretary.
Such a law/national policy would end our budget deficits, our debt and all these damn wars for oil/foreign entanglements that kill our kids and poison our national spirit. No more bowing to Saudi Kings!!!
The more I think about it, it's too important to be a law. It should be an Amendment to the Constitution!
Autarky has been tried by a number of countries spain, russia, china, and others and always its been a dismal failure. What we need to do is boost our oil and natural gas production enough that we can embargo hostile countries without causing a dramatic price state side.
Those single countries did not/do not have the proven oil and natural gas reserves, the business infrastructure and legal system in place to make it happen that we have here in North America.
It is the roadblocks our political opposition has put in place that prevent us from ending these wars for oil and keeps us from the economic transformation developing our abundant, stable domestic energy supplies and exports would bring about.
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