Drill Baby!

[WaterMan]

So he is opening up offshore for exploration only and not drilling?

 

Obama:

But the bottom line is this: Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.

[Tford]

No company will invest resources into surveys and seismic data without assurance that they will be able to exploit the deposit afterwards.

 

So no, he didn't explicitly say that he is opening it up to drilling. But no producer will explore anything unless they can drill when they are done.

[WaterMan]

He kind of did. In his speech he says that we need to drill for the nation's short term while starting up new resources for the long term. The New York Times has his speech.

 

But what I want to emphasize is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy. And the only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and the long run. To fail to recognize this reality would be a mistake.

 

Sounds like drilling to me. Just not the amount/places some people would want.

Edited April 1, 2010 by WaterMan

[bushwacked]

No company will invest resources into surveys and seismic data without assurance that they will be able to exploit the deposit afterwards.

 

So no, he didn't explicitly say that he is opening it up to drilling. But no producer will explore anything unless they can drill when they are done.

 

 

Obviously, I was just hoping Posty would give us a breakdown on the logic behind his inference. I'm sure it's not like all the other countless right wing conspiracy theories espoused here on a daily basis that never come to fruition.

[WaterMan]

Obviously, I was just hoping Posty would give us a breakdown on the logic behind his inference. I'm sure it's not like all the other countless right wing conspiracy theories espoused here on a daily basis that never come to fruition.

 

This conspiracry theory deals with how if oil isn't drilled out of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Alaska, then it's not real oil. Which brings in posty calling this oil from the Gulf and the East a farce.

[griff321]

As a guy who actually drills for oil, I'm extremely surprised that it took this long to mobilize drilling in that area. As far as the quality of the oil found in that area, you won't find much better. And the reservoir quality is also top notch.

 

Why does it seem like the only areas you guys seem to drill in (as far as your own backyard goes) are the extremely difficult and cost/methodology sensitive shale gas areas in colorado etc.?

 

No brainer as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

Disclaimer: I do not follow American politics and have no opinion either way. My views are strictly from an oil and gas producer perspective.

Being an oil guy maybe you can help me enlighten some of my buddies. What kind of negative environmental impact could this have if any? They evoke images of Seagal and On Deadly Ground.

 

My personal feelings is that it won't be an eyesore because the platforms must be something like 150 miles off the coast. The quality of the reservoir is some of the best material like you say and the drilling technology has come a long way in it's negative impacts on the environment. To me it makes perfect sense and is yet another in the line of very moderate moves by Obama.

[Scooby's Hubby]

You'd think the two Bush Presidents with their oil companies would have opened this up sooner. Maybe jobs wasn't on their agendas.

Actually, we have been busy drilling ONSHORE where jobs have been booming in TX and Louisiana. As a matter of fact, without decent prices, the job markets in TX and LA would be extremely poor. The Fed govt has had drilling incentives in place for several decades (IDC intangible drilling costs are completely deductable) but good prices are the best incentives. Obama's decision is really quite insignificant to both sides of the aisle. Most action will be in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. If Callifornia was serious about relieving their debt, they would do the same. There are big reserves on the CA coast and the state could be debt free if they chose to promote exploration and rake in the revenues. It would cost them zero to make billions. The platforms that are so ugly would not be permanent to their coastal view and would probably be many many miles off the coast, most likely out of view, as it is in the Gulf Of Mexico.

[posty]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/busine...fy/6940711.html

 

Steffy: Dodge, baby, dodge on drilling issue

By LOREN STEFFY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

 

My neck hurts.

 

I think I got a case of whiplash from listening to President Barack Obama's announcement on offshore oil and natural gas drilling. That's what I get for trying to look for logic in what passes for federal energy policy.

 

The headlines, of course, were that Obama was opening parts of the East Coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico to new drilling, but most of that is just a political dance to woo Republicans for a climate bill.

 

The real issue in the Obama policy is Alaska. The energy industry spent seven years persuading the Bush administration to open Bristol Bay, on the southern coast, and two regions in the north to new drilling.

 

Under Obama's plan, it would be closed again until at least 2017, just another zig in our ever zagging plan for energy development.

 

Houston-based ConocoPhillips has invested more than $500 million in its Chukchi Sea leases in the north during the past two years and is scheduled to drill its first well in 2012. It will be allowed to proceed under the new plan, as will a project Shell Oil Co. has in the region.

 

ConocoPhillips' investment, though, shows the level of capital and long lead times required for these projects. It's not the sort of money most companies are willing to gamble on wishy-washy government policies.

 

While shutting down new areas of Alaska, Obama plans to open new areas of the Gulf. Drilling will be limited to at least 125 miles off the shore of Florida.

 

Don't expect companies to be flooding into the area and setting up platforms.

 

Offshore drilling is a migration, from shallow waters to deep. The farther from shore the drilling occurs, the more expensive it becomes.

 

BP's massive Thunder Horse platform, for example, is 175 miles from New Orleans, but BP didn't just plunk it down in the middle of the Gulf. Fly out to Thunder Horse and you pass several generations of earlier rigs, each wave of development pushing farther from shore than the last.

 

What's more, unlike Louisiana and Texas, the East Coast has no drilling infrastructure to speak of — no storage facilities, pipelines, hubs, equipment yards, or transportation system for shuttling workers to and from the rigs.

 

Developing that will take years, and in the meantime, drilling costs will be astronomical.

 

BP spent $1 billion building the 50,000-ton Thunder Horse, and Shell spent about $3 billion on its Perdido platform.

 

Obama may score some political points with opponents. The oil industry was issuing cautious statements this week, calling the announcement “meaningful” and praising the job creation that will ensue.

 

But no jobs are going to be created until the money issues are settled, and in that, Obama has opened a 42-gallon drum of worms. If a companies finds oil or natural gas, who gets the royalties? The state or the feds?

 

With both levels of government hungry for revenue, the royalty fight could get ugly. After a bruising battle over similar issues in 2006, some federal lawmakers vowed to cut states out of the royalty picture in the future.

 

Meanwhile, the states affected by the plan — from Maryland to Florida — are already licking their fiscal chops. Virginia just last month enacted legislation for distributing energy royalties.

 

Billed as a compromise, Obama's policy is really an expensive trade-off, shutting down access to fields of known reserves in favor of some very expensive question marks.

 

It may be that, in time, the country will benefit from the new policy, that companies will be willing to place big bets in the newly opened areas, but that's likely only with a significant rise in oil prices that would make them worth the risk.

 

Obama was right about one thing: we need “to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources.” Unfortunately, the plan he outlined this week doesn't do that.

 

All it does is make my neck hurt.

[WaterMan]

The real issue in the Obama policy is Alaska.

 

[millerx]

Was it because this was a fox news article that got laughing?

.... no, wait...

it wasn't fox news, it was an observation from just a regular new source on "his" new policies...

 

Now I see why your laughing.

Edited April 7, 2010 by millerx