Comments on: Cheap Oil

By: Kris, in New England

Kris, in New England — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:51:43 +0000

That last word is poetry in brief:

good

Yup.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:27:23 +0000

Subsunk/AW1–unfortunately, IMO the last election cycle pretty much put the kabosh on any common sense solutions like “Drill here, Drill now, pay less” . We are sitting on the solution to our energy needs, but BHO & those who are holding the cards in Congress are no friends to big oil. Hope I’m wrong about that, but haven’t seen any indication that they understand dire our situation is. RE “Bill O’Reilly”: He may have missed the mark, but it’s hard to explain your not the cause of the problem when consumer dollars are going to your oil company and you, as the big exec are knocking down obscenely high salaries and perks. Makes you and you cause look bad, kinda like those “Big Three” auto makers pleading poverty, but still able to fly in on those corporate jets, dotcha think?

By: Guy

Guy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:31:02 +0000

AW1 Tim,

I agree 100% with you…….and as, I believe Subsuk mentioned, the oil companies don’t partiularly want to drill because of the lack of profit in it. If we could figure out a way around that roadblock, we’d have the problem solved.

Guy

By: AW1 Tim

AW1 Tim — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:20:24 +0000

Subsunk,

You’re running hot and true with those comments. BZ…

To my mind, NOW is absolutely the best time to drill for new oil, and expand our available resources as well as add to the reserves. That way, when the prices rise again, and the fat foreign oil regimes start to lick their lips, we can say “no thanks! We’re dining at home tonight!”.

respects,

By: Subsunk

Subsunk — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:48:35 +0000

IF we reach $20/barrel (and that’s a mighty big IF), there certainly won’t be much oil drilling or exploration occurring where it needs to occur…. offshore. While I agree that we need to make better use of American resources, the plain truth is digging holes 16,000 feet down into the ground isn’t cheap. It costs a million dollars a day to drill, with a regular roughneck team, and usually over 30 days to drill to 16000 feet. It costs even more to do that at sea, as CAPT Lex can attest. Doing ANYTHING at sea costs more than doing it on the beach.

Additionally, there is a breakeven point for oil below which oil companies won’t put up the funds to explore for more. No payback. We are getting close to that level right now.

State Oil Companies (Saudi Aramco[Saudi Arabia], Statoil[Norway], Petrobras[Brazil], etc.)… may be willing to pay more to explore, but the private companies can’t They don’t have a national treasury backing up their failures.

So hopefully we won’t go too low on the price or 5 yrs from now we’ll be back here again, just after we climb out of recession and need to be cruising along with a STABLE commodity price for oil. Ups and downs happen. The oil industry would be just as happy if the price would sit there and not move while they made their plans for exploration. Of course, that’s not gonna happen either.

What dismays me is how the Chavez’s, Abdullahs, and Ahmedinejad’s of the world can actually stick it to us for so long (remember this summer with $4/gal gasoline), and our economy can take it, and then when something else slows it down, they can all drop their price by 60% almost overnight! These aren’t US traders causing the price drop. It is the nationalized oil companies manipulating America and the rest of the world to make profit. They don’t care how much they make poor folks hurt. Just so America keeps on buying their oil at the highest price possible for them.

When you go looking to blame someone for the high price of oil (this means you, Bill O’Reilly), don’t go looking at Exxon or BP. Look at Hugo Chavez, King Abdullah, Imanutjob, and Mexico and Brazil for their manipulations. America’s not the cause of this recession, just the target of it.

Subsunk

By: Steeljaw Scribe

Steeljaw Scribe — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:35:10 +0000

Oh — and don’t forget our Slavic “buds” in the hurtin’ category as oil prices drop…
- SJS