Oil, Gas, and Bullshit

Wiseacre

Retired USAF Chief
Apr 8, 2011
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San Antonio, TX
Many on this board deny the possibility that increasing our domestic production of oil will affect oil prices, yet they'll cheerfully swallow the Obama line that if we reduce demand here that'll lower the price. He said so in an energy speech last week (Feb 23), look it up. But then he says in the same speech that how much oil we produce at home is "not going to set the price of gas world-wide". Does anyone not see the bullshit here, commodity prices are determined by both supply and demand, if demand goes up or supply goes down then the price increases. And the reverse is also true, less demand and/or more supply lowers the price. That's the way it is folks, unless gov'ts intervene somewhere, as they did in the Arab Oil Embargo back in the 70s.

I've got no problem working on reducing the demand for fossil fuels in a number of ways, efficiency and alternative fuels among them. I do expect such efforts to be cost effective however, we are not in a position to be pissing money away by the hundreds of millions, as we did with Solyndra. But my real issue with the President in this post is his refusal to address the supply side of the equation by increasing domestic production. Which has increased under his administration, but not nearly as much as it could have been. Most of the increase is on private land, permits for public lands have been significantly reduced by the Obama admin. In fact, oil production on federal lands is at a 9 year low. Production in the gulf is way down, he dragged his feet forever on granting permits in the gulf even after a federal judge ordered him to. And we're not drilling in ANWAR, or off our continental shelf as some states would like to do.

When Obama says we only have 2% of the world's known reserves, he's talking about proven oil reserves. According to the Institute for Energy Research, when you include oil shale, the U.S. has 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil. That is enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years, without any imports. With the technology revolution in the energy business, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking, the old idea of proved oil reserves that Obama keeps using should be replaced with the new concept of recoverable resources. Investor's Business Daily recently did an article that says the U.S. now has 60 times more recoverable oil reserves than Obama claims. And that doesn't even include the natural-gas shale revolution, which has already slashed electricity prices for homes and businesses and will eventually be used more and more in transportation.

We import nearly half of our oil, thereby exporting enormous amounts of U.S. wealth. Almost 60 percent of our trade deficit — $332 billion out of $560 billion — is sent overseas to buy crude, mostly to people who are not our friends. How ridiculous is that, and how many jobs are we NOT creating when we pursue Obama's anti-fossil fuel agenda? Even if there were no savings at the pump, do you really want to be at the mercy of people like Hugo Chavez and the mullahs of Iran?

And then there's this: energy companies from Spain, Russia and Malaysia are lining up to drill for oil in Cuban waters 60 miles from the Florida Keys, U.S. agencies are struggling to cobble together emergency plans to protect fragile reefs, sandy beaches and a multibillion-dollar tourism industry in the event of a spill. The risks are there anyway, but we aren't getting any of the rewards. And you tell me, wouldn't you rather have a US company drilling off our shores, where we can control the compliance with standards? Why is it okay for us to invest in a Brazilian company to drill for oil off shore but not in our own companies?

I got my data from the following links:

Daniel Yergin: What's Behind Rising Gas Prices? - WSJ.com

Institute for Energy Research | Fossil fuel production on federal lands at 9 year low

Institute for Energy Research | Exposing the 2 percent oil reserves myth
 
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Much of that imported oil comes from Canada.
And many want to build another pipeline and import more from Canada.
 
Much of that imported oil comes from Canada.
And many want to build another pipeline and import more from Canada.


I dunno how much of our imported oil comes from Canada, maybe somebody can provide the info. Not as much as it could be, since Obama has nixed the XL Pipeline, at least for now. After 3 years of study, we still need more time to make the call? Bullshit.
 
Much of that imported oil comes from Canada.
And many want to build another pipeline and import more from Canada.


I dunno how much of our imported oil comes from Canada, maybe somebody can provide the info. Not as much as it could be, since Obama has nixed the XL Pipeline, at least for now. After 3 years of study, we still need more time to make the call? Bullshit.
Obama will lose with his decision...
 
My guess is that we have a plenty of oil of our own. Let's ramp things up and really find out just how much we have. Then we can tell all the Middle East countries to go fuck themselves and begin to use our own oil.
 
My guess is that we have a plenty of oil of our own. Let's ramp things up and really find out just how much we have. Then we can tell all the Middle East countries to go fuck themselves and begin to use our own oil.

"The U.S. has around 20 billion barrels in proven reserves, but the amount of undiscovered so called "technically recoverable" oil is over seven times that.
Those are the government's own figures!
And we can get that oil using today's technology. In fact, the U.S. has nearly 1.5 trillion barrels of oil.
That's enough to fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years, according to the Institute for Energy Research.
Former President of Shell Oil on FBN earlier today on how we could easily get back to producing 10 million barrels a day:
"The best source for new oil is the world's largest consumer economy: this country. We could go back to 10 million barrels if we had the permitting that would enable it to happen. We have the oil. There is more oil in this country that we're not allowed to get at than oil we're allowed to get at.”
But much of the oil is off limits thanks to the policies of this President:

-And Shale Oil where the United States has the largest deposits in the world estimated by the government to be over 2 trillion barrels.
Even when the production is not in this country, the President will do anything he can to stop it, like blocking the Keystone pipeline.

Also, what the President is refusing to acknowledge is the United States is in the middle of an oil boom thanks to new technology like deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
So the President needs to stop with the 2% lie.
The solutions are right in front of us, but this administration flatly refuses to explore them."

Obama's 2% Lie - GerriWillis.com Blog - Fox Business
 
My guess is that we have a plenty of oil of our own. Let's ramp things up and really find out just how much we have. Then we can tell all the Middle East countries to go fuck themselves and begin to use our own oil.
We have much that will carry this Republic for the next couple hundred of years as the Earth manufactures it daily...

WHY are we relying on others to supply what we can and then some?

Politicians are lying to us...and smiling as they lie.
 
You want energy prices reduced ? Outlaw exporting and nationalize the energy sector.
These kikes are killing murkins by ripping off mountain tops and selling them to China.
Your seafood gets sold abroad and kikes import the nastiest shit you could ever consume to replace it.
Your fascist corporate govt, owned by IsNtReal, has you by the balls. It was meant to be the other way around, but hey...... it's just a Gawddamn piece of paper.
 
When we were sold the horseshit ethanol scam, one of the major arguments was that each barrel of ethanol produced would replace one barrel of imported oil.

But never has it been expressed that each barrel increase in domestic oil production replaces a barrel of imported oil.

Petrophobia. It's an illness. And it's being fueled by our President.
 
So what are we all going to do about the CRIMINALS who reside in Washington, D.C.? Keep on acting like a bunch of whiney bitches, or take our country back! ARREST the criminals and charge them with TREASON!

No, everybody will just keep whining and complaining. THAT'S the new "American way". No guts, no glory.
 
So what are we all going to do about the CRIMINALS who reside in Washington, D.C.? Keep on acting like a bunch of whiney bitches, or take our country back! ARREST the criminals and charge them with TREASON!

No, everybody will just keep whining and complaining. THAT'S the new "American way". No guts, no glory.


Vote 'em out. I don't care which party they're in or how long they've been there. If we don't, it's on us not them.
 
You appear to be referring to this speech: Text of President Obama’s Speech at University of Miami, Feb. 23, 2012 | Discourse.net

However, it does not seem to say what you claim it does. It does not contain the phrase "not going to set the price of gas world-wide" (though the sentiment is expressed with different phrasing). More importantly, he does not say that

if we reduce demand here that'll lower the price.

What he says is that

we need a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels, and more. We need to keep developing the technology that allows us to use less oil in our cars and trucks; in our buildings and plants. That’s the strategy we’re pursuing, and that’s the only real solution to this challenge.

He also notes

we need you... to connect the entire world with our own science and imagination.

The amount that the US spends on oil is equal to the amount of oil purchased multiplied by the price of oil. Even if a reduction in the quantity of oil demanded did not reduce the price of oil (and I doubt very much that it would) it would still reduce the amount spent on oil by reducing the other factor (the amount of oil purchased). Further, Obama notes that alternative fuel technologies developed in the US have the potential to reduce demand worldwide, so he is not focused entirely on domestic reforms to what he describes as a global problem.

Your assessment of domestic oil capacity also seems suspect. The Department of the Interior places the amount of technically recoverable oil at an order of magnitude smaller (http://www.boemre.gov/revaldiv/PDFs/2006NationalAssessmentBrochure.pdf) than the figure you quote from IER. I haven't heard of IER before, but it is an industry advocacy group whose CEO has the dubious honor of being a former speechwriter for Enron's Ken Lay (Capitalism at work: business, government, and energy - Robert L. Bradley - Google Books).
 
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So what are we all going to do about the CRIMINALS who reside in Washington, D.C.? Keep on acting like a bunch of whiney bitches, or take our country back! ARREST the criminals and charge them with TREASON!

No, everybody will just keep whining and complaining. THAT'S the new "American way". No guts, no glory.

No one will arrest those in charge, Congress and the President need to be voted outand new blood inserted and keep doing it until they understand that it is we the people!
 

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