To Drill or to Buy Oil?

[Bluehawk]

The Republicans are blaming the Democrats for failing (which they did) to pass any legislation aimed at increasing drilling for oil on proven reserves in ANWR and offshore.

The Democrats are blaming the Republicans for refusing to pass any legislation aimed at increasing fuel efficiency and alternative energy sources.

Both parties are blaming middle eastern oil producing nations, OPEC and speculators for the ridiculous cost of oil.

The story is a long one, and we have known about it in full since at least 1974... and have done next to nothing.

The rhetoric today is identical with the rhetoric of 1974, except that a gallon of gas now costs upwards of $4.10 national average.

Trucking companies, airlines and anybody who uses fuel is either out of business or on the verge of it.

Everybody is blaming somebody else and accomplishing nothing but talk and more talk.

If it weren't so dangerous, this would be up there with Laurel and Hardy comedy.

Maybe the best thing to do is to do everything we possibly can to INCREASE the cost of oil so that the whole damn system will fall to pieces all at once?

THEN, for sure, politicians will rush in to save us

[Bluehawk]

Althought there are sure to be cries from the Left that this was the intent of the "Bush administration" from the beginning of OIF, I am probably in favor of this move.

The reason is because there may be no other way to rebuild the Iraqi petro infrastructure quickly and to the point where it is producing what it is capable of for Iraq or anyone else.

If this does take place however, it will probably mean some kind of a shift in military emphasis since it will be American corporations financing and to some degree staffing those facilities again.

Source link:
Deals with Iraq are set to bring oil giants back - International Herald Tribune
----------------------------------
"Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq's Oil Ministry.

> Related Articles

Oil falls after Chinese plan to increase retail prices

Libya hires Goldman Sachs for advice on oil production

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world's dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world's oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.

The Iraqi government's stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.

For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.

It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.

A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. "We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization," said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. "The contents of the proposal are confidential."

While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.

"The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields," Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm's Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a "foothold" in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.

Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.

And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq's oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies..."

1 | 2 | 3 Next Page

[leobold1]

Drill as short term (10-20 years) yes.

Using oil as a long term approach? Hell NO!

We use oil in almost all vehicles, and it's going to take at least 15 years to get enough people off oil to make it worthwhile.

People aren't going to buy new cars and trucks if the price is more and what the car and truck can do is less, which is where we are now. Same for aircraft. Same for ships. Same for trains.

If...and this is a pretty big "if" the way things are going...we do a crash program to find out what works and what doesn't, and aim our resource management toward what works. The market is going to be the main ideal for that, but not the only one.

Congress and the in-coming President are in a rare place right now. Developing an energy policy that actually moves the American people off oil and onto alternatives will win the election. But, that's too much of a high-risk move.

So, they'll play it safe, and my granddaughter will be driving a gas powered car.

We need someone to step up and actually DO SOMETHING to move this forward. We need leadership to make this work. Real leadership. Using the bully pulpit of the Presidency and Congress to tell Americans what we already know.

Here's what needs to be said:

We need to get off oil and we'll make it happen.

But, in the meantime, we need oil, so we need to drill.

Any Federal Land that may hold oil under it will have a derrick on it. If there is no oil there, we'll take it away and put it back like it was. That means ANWR, Yellowstone, Everglades, and your local park.

Florida and California, I'm sorry, but we're going to ruin your pristine beaches with the view of floating oil derricks.

We will not fix gas prices, but we will take the taxes we have from oil to pay for research into alternative fuels.

Oil companies have, as of today, lost all subsidies. You want to make money, you drill.

Those same oil companies will hereby change to Energy companies, researching all forms of energy technology.

This is going to mean a spike in gas prices. I'm sorry.

We are not giving tax breaks for driving an alternative fuel vehicle. Its your choice. You can pay less for a gas powered car and more for fuel, or you can pay more for the car and less for fuel. Take a look at your finances and make your choice.

The minimum fuel mileage in the city is raised to 30 MPG, 40 MPG on the highway, for all new vehicles as of the next new models, and raising 5 MPG for every 3 years from now on. Any car that doesn't have this will not be allowed to be produced. This also goes for any vehicle that is imported.

As of this moment, there will be no oil imported without a fixed purchase price, good for 10 years. If the price of a barrel of oil today is $140, that's what we'll pay for the next 10 years. Not a penny more. If the price drops, we will pay that amount. We're the USA, deal with it.

If your government is hostile towards the US, we will not buy oil from you.

And in 10 years, we will be completely self-sufficent in oil. We wish you good luck.

This is my energy policy. If you don't like it, don't vote for me. But we need more than drill, drill, drill to get out of this. We need to stop our reliance on foreign oil, especially from nations that want us harmed.

[Snowden]

Amen to that, Jeff. There's simply no need to go on this way, and a great deal of danger to us and to our way of life. Not to mention all the things our Constitution has kept intact for us.

[Bluehawk]

One would have thought that in the most recent 34 years, SOMEBODY in this damn government, with all their perks and privileges, could have managed to get over themselves and do what has been mandatory to make and keep us self-sufficient about oil and energy sources.

Not only have they not done so, at this moment of crisis they are spending 100% of their time pointing fingers at each other and anyone else, once again counting angels on pin heads, rather than DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY!

I am absolutely furious about this.

[Shooterman]

I believe, and this is my two centavos worth ( practicing for the big day ) we have taken this attitude of "WE'RE THE USA, DEAL WITH IT" far too long and most are now dealing with it. As we have already started the slide into oblivion, most of the other countries we have used our hubris and muscle on, are more than willing to help the slide along.

The fat's in the fire, boys and girls, and as long as we continue to send the same children to Washington, the fat will be consumed in the roaring inferno.

It is one thing to talk tough from a position of strength, but quite another to talk 'trash'. Belligerence and bellicosity on a day in-day out, year in-year out basis, in my opinion, gets you absolutely no where in the long haul. Pie in the sky, feel good, BS rhetoric, at one time, may have been gotten away with, but there are far too many people out there now that can simply use our belligerence and bellicosity, against us.