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Believe me, I really wish it turned out that way and everything that I said turns out to be false. Drilling our own oil would really help this economy a lot as well as help the wallets of motorists. And it's good to see that Americans have not stopped travelling because of the gas prices. I would love to see prices go down so I can better afford to fly Cessna's and check out the beautiful country we live in.
It will work. it is bacis Economics. If you increase the supply of gas the price will drop.
Not when the resource is becoming scarce.
Spare me that crap. We have perhaps one billion barrels,or more, of oil sitting in the ground.
The libs and enviro wackso block every attempt to get it
Nice come back. When the price is rising, this indicates that the commodity is becoming relatively scarcer, unless it's all a ruuuuuuuse.
Since refinery capactity is nearly 100% and demand continues to rise, the price goes up
Basic Economics 101
Yes. Meaning that the demand is EXCEEDING the supply, equating, for the moment, scarcity. Basic Economics 101.
You may not know this, but you have to REFINE the oil. We also need to expand and build new refineries
To complicated for you to grap the situation?
You may not know this, but you have to REFINE the oil. We also need to expand and build new refineries
To complicated for you to grap the situation?
In addition to crude, the US also has massive oil shale
U.S. HAS MASSIVE OIL RESERVES
SHALE REMAINS UNTAPPED AFTER DECADES OF FAILURE
By Christopher J. Petherick
There is an estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil buried beneath parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Geologists, petroleum companies and the federal government have known about these massive deposits for nearly a century. The trouble has always been: how do you get at it?
It is believed that the shale deposits in the Green River region of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are holding the equivalent of approximately 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. Called oil shale or shale oil, according to scientists and petroleum companies, much of it cannot be recovered with current technology due to the costly processing involved and the depth of the deposits buried beneath the Rocky Mountains.
Still, if only half can be extracted, scientists believe the amount is nearly triple the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
There has been quite a bit of hype surrounding the shale oil deposits of late. The problem with this, however, is that the type of oil in the western United States is contained in fine-grained sedimentary rockshence the name shale oil.
NOT REALLY OIL
Technically, it is not really oil at this stage, say geologists. Its kerogensort of an oil-like substance that, when heated in an expensive, laborious process, can be turned into a lower-grade oil, which can then be used in cars.
Walter Youngquist, a geologist from Eugene, Ore., published an article on the web site of the World Energy Council which delves into this subject. Youngquist put it this way:
The term oil shale is a misnomer. It does not contain oil nor is it commonly shale. The organic material is chiefly kerogen, and the shale is usually a relatively hard rock, called marl. Properly processed, kerogen can be converted into a substance somewhat similar to petroleum. However, it has not gone through the oil window of heat (natures way of producing oil) and therefore, to be changed into an oil-like substance, it must be heated to a high temperature. By this process the organic material is converted into a liquid, which must be further processed to produce an oil which is said to be better than the lowest grade of oil produced from conventional oil deposits, but of lower quality than the upper grades of conventional oil.
There are currently two main processes for refining shale oil, both of which are capital and labor intensive. In one method, the shale is broken down on-site and heated. The gases and liquids can then be extracted. In the second, the shale oil is removed and transported to facilities where it is then heated and refined.
NO SECRET
It is no secret that there is a potential oil bonanza in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The Association of Petroleum Geologists (APG) reports that in the 1900s, oil companies began looking into the deposits in this part of the United States.
In fact, in the 1920s, thousands of so-called oil placer claims were filed on public lands following a rules change by the federal government that allowed private companies to lease government-managed land and extract the natural resources there.
Large deposits of shale oil are also not unique to the United States. In fact, there are huge reserves of the substance all around the world, from China to Australia to Scotland to South Africa. But, once again, the problem rests with the expense of getting to it and processing it. In the mid-to-late 19th century, France and Scotland extracted large deposits and processed it for their own purposes.
For the most part, the shale oil deposits in the United States were ignored in the United States up until the oil crisis of the late 1970s forced petroleum companies to begin thinking about alternative sources of oil. However, since then, the price of gas has been rock bottom so oil companiesmotivated by huge profits and not the need to ensure that the United States is energy self-sufficienthave been avoiding spending the money to research new techniques for refining shale oil.
Today, as oil prices creep up again, petroleum companies are again looking at shale oil despite its high price tag, evidenced by the fact that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has requests from multinational oil conglomerates to extract shale oil in the Green River region.
But even with modern technology, the difficulties associated with extracting and processing shale oil have forced even some of the largest oil companies to drop out of the game.
An April 11 article in Colorados daily newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News, noted that the BLM began accepting proposals by companies to develop the shale oil in the Western part of the United States in the summer of 2005.
But BLM officials, citing various reasons, have already rejected bids put forth by 14 out of 18 companies, including an offer by Exxon Mobil.
The BLM said it dumped Exxon Mobil because it did not appear to be dedicating enough resources to shale oil research. But Exxon is reportedly notorious in that part of the country. According to The Rocky Mountain News, many Coloradans still remember Black Sunday, or May 2, 1982, when Exxon execs announced the closure of a shale oil processing facility that had been running for decades in western Colorado. The closure put 2,200 people out of work in that part of the state, resulting in a rash of bankruptcies and foreclosures, which hurt the locals for many years after.
Shell has reportedly been studying ways to extract oil shale on land in Colorado since the 1990s. The company said it hopes to have a full-blown operation by 2010.
Two others reportedly still in the running include Chevron and the Texas-based EGL Resources. Industry experts are optimistic that, with help from the government, new techniques can be developed to economically extract oil from the shale deposits and process it with relative ease.
(Issue #20, May 15, 2006)
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/u_s__has_massive_oil.html
Lets get real redstatesrule. Sure refining capacity is maxed out. The problem is that new refineries are highly unlikely to get built anytime soon. The environmentalists made sure that when gas was cheap, that laws were passed to prohibit refineries and the environmental consequences that they create. Unfortunate isnt it? Even if we were to start building new refineries today, we would be looking at at least a couple years, if not more like 5 - 10 before they would be operational. Building new refineries is not going to help the problem anytime soon.
As for production. Production in the United States has peaked. Sure, I'm certain that you don't buy the peak oil bs, and neither do I, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that production is on the decline here in the States. While methods to hone discoveries, e.g geophysical surveys, directional drilling, etc have increased the profitability of the discoveries we are making, its too little too late. We are not replacing the large oil fields with new ones of comparable size. Even if we find dozens of smaller fields, it is not enough to cope with the loss of production of larger fields.
Moreover, when you look at the size of these fields you have to keep in mind that using the most current technology only 50% of most oil is recoverable. Its terrible isnt it? But its true.
Furthermore, production nowadays only exceeds global demand by less than 3 million bbl a month. While we may have stockpiles, and such... If there is a large regional disturbance or a natural disaster we could very well see oil prices spike beyond $5/gal.
Building refineries is not the solution to this problem. It is deep rooted, and spread amongst a number of issues... Each extremely complicated to solve.
As Americans jammed the highways and airports to enjoy their holiday, I thought how PO'd the libs must be.
With gas near $3 a gallon, Americans are enjoying the holiday and do not seemed a bit worse for wear with high energy prices
The US economy is so strong, high oil prices cannot stop it from growing.
Of course, libs were running around saying how the high gas prices would keep people home this 4th of July.
Wrong! Libs keep chanting their doom and gloom message and it keeps falling on deaf ears
I found this article which proves my point (in addition to the crowded highways)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p09s02-coop.html
Why $3 gas won't slow the US economy
We're in the middle of a boom spurred by lower taxes, big productivity, and free-market resiliency.
By Lawrence Kudlow
NEW YORK As all the pollsters are telling us, there's an inverse relationship between rising gasoline prices and President Bush's falling approval ratings - most especially his approval rating on the economy. Of course, these polls describe a certain national angst over energy that harkens back to the dreadful 1970s. But there's a better reality out there: Namely, the upturn in gas prices simply is not stopping the economy the way it did three decades ago.
Today's economy may be the greatest story never told. It's an American boom, spurred by lower tax rates, huge profits, big productivity, plentiful jobs, and an ongoing free-market capitalist resiliency. It's also a global boom, marked by a spread of free- market capitalism like we've never seen before.
The political resolution to the disconnect between fear (high energy prices) and reality (a great economy) remains to be seen. But as the data keep rolling in, the economy continues to surpass not only the pessimism of its critics, but even the optimism of its supporters.
Recent data on production, retail sales, and employment are stronger than expected. The latest durable-goods report shows huge gains in orders for big-ticket items such as airplanes, transportation, metals, machinery, and computers - even cars and parts. These orders suggest that the economic boom will continue as far as the eye can see. And there's more: The backlog of unfilled orders, the best leading indicator of business activity, gained 12 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter. With this kind of real-world corporate activity in the pipeline, highly profitable businesses will be doing a lot of hiring in the months ahead in order to expand plant and equipment capacity.
As for the energy angst, President Bush recently outlined a sensible pro-market mid-course policy correction. He is suspending the ethanol tax mandate that forced gasoline distributors to switch to the corn-based fuel from the MTBE oxygenate. This ethanol regulation was one of the great energy-policy bungles of all time. Neither refiners nor transporters were anywhere near ready to implement this misguided mandate, which drove up pump prices by 50 cents in just a few weeks.
But with Mr. Bush's recent action, futures prices for unleaded gasoline are already retreating, and it wouldn't surprise me if the whole ethanol price hike effect was reversed. Crude oil is also declining in the aftermath of the Bush announcements, which included the decision to stop the crude-oil fill rate for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. At the margin, government deregulation is giving markets more latitude - always a good thing.
The big point here is that free markets work. Rising prices from the global boom will lead to more conservation, less consumption, and more production, but only so long as government stays out of the way. Instead of blaming ExxonMobil for high gas prices, irate motorists and voters should blame Congress for mandating, regulating, and taxing against energy.
Indeed, bashing big oil won't create a drop of new energy. Actually, over the past 15 years, ExxonMobil's total investment has exceeded the company's earnings, according to Washington analyst James K. Glassman. Meanwhile, all the evidence from time immemorial shows that gas prices are set by market forces, not manipulation at the production level. So-called price gouging is nothing but a political red herring. Windfall profits taxes and special tax subsidies will only diminish energy investment, not increase it.
Energy is best left in the hands of the free market. With this in mind, Congress should allow environmentally friendly drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf, the building of more LNG terminals, and the creation of nuclear power facilities. Deregulation works: Just look at the boom in Canadian oil sands.
Bush can also build on his new energy policy with more pro-growth measures that will extend the economic boom: Get rid of the ethanol tax for good. Repeal the tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil and elsewhere. Repeal the multiple taxation of dividends and cap gains. And abolish the death tax while you're at it.
Exercise the budget veto pen to stop bridges and railroads to nowhere. Go back to the Reagan economic model of a strong dollar to hold down inflation and lower-tax-rate incentives to promote economic growth. That model will work as well today as it did 25 years ago, when it launched the long prosperity boom we continue to enjoy.
Most of all, let free markets work. This is the new worldwide message of freedom, prosperity, and optimism.
Lawrence Kudlow is CEO of Kudlow & Co., an economic and investment research firm. ©2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.
