The Republicans and Drilling - Possible responses

[Coexist]

A few possible one-liners for your use - please add any you have:

- Republicans won't release the Strategic Oil Reserve, which belongs to the taxpayers.

- Republicans want to drill, which will only make oil companies richer, Democrats want to create new working class jobs in solar and wind for millions of American workers.

- PLEASE, even T. Boone Pickens agrees we can't drill our way out of this one.

- A few year's worth of oil isn't worth trashing the environment any more.

- Guarantee me that the price of gas for the U.S. consumer will go down, and that the oil companies will not sell to the highest overseas bidder, namely China ...

- Refineries are running at full capacity, what is the point of getting more oil into the pipelines if it can't be refined?

- Where will all of this new oil be refined? Which new refinery? Oh, right, there are none. There are tankers full of oil sitting in line to be refined into gasoline. That wouldn't change if we drilled. How about one of these companies try to build a refinery? Oh, right, that would increase supply, and reduce their profit per gallon. Not gonna happen.

- since we're sending 2/3 more gas OUT of the country than we did just last year, why bother to drill more, since we don't keep it here anyway?

- ANWR contains about 10 billion gallons, US consumption is about 20 million gallons a day. This works out to be about 500 days supply, about a year and four months. This isn't about supply, it's ABOUT profit!




Post yours, we'll make a quick list.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. A few more year's worth

of oil is not worth the wholesale environmental destruction it would render.

[Coexist]

6. I modified yours to be more "my level of speech" friendly,

I hope you don't mind.

[Captain Angry]

2. Where will all of this new oil be refined? Which new refinery?

Oh, right, there are none. There are tankers full of oil sitting in line to be refined into gasoline. That wouldn't change if we drilled.

How about one of these companies try to build a refinery? Oh, right, that would increase supply, and reduce their profit per gallon. Not gonna happen.

[zbdent]

3. Guarantee me that the price of gas for the U.S. consumer will go down.

And that the oil companies will not sell to the highest overseas bidder, namely China ...

[Beaverhausen]

4. Also, refineries are running at full capacity

what is the point of getting more oil into the pipelines if it can't be refined?

[zbdent]

5. a take on post # 2

I thought the problem was that there weren't any new refineries ... and why aren't the existing ones running at full production?

[Coexist]

7. - these are all GREAT! Keep them coming!

[ColbertWatcher]

8. I can't think of any right now, but this deserves more participation...

...and a kick and a rec.

Good job.

[NMDemDist2]

9. since we're already sending 1/3 more gas OUT of the country than we did

just last year, why bother to drill more, since we don't keep it here anyway

:shrug:

edit cuz I had the % wrong

[Coexist]

10. I'm not quite sure how to condense that

are you saying that we send out 2/3 of the oil that we drill for here?

[NMDemDist2]

11. exports of gas are up 33% over last year

WASHINGTON3 (Reuters) - While the U.S. oil industry want access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

.......

But environmentalists and other opponents to expanding drilling areas could seize on the record exports to argue Congress should not open more acres if U.S. refineries are churning crude oil into petroleum products that are sent out of the American market.

(Forbes, 7-3-08)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3618662&mesg_id=3618662

[Coexist]

12. Holy Crap!

[NMDemDist2]

13. and here's why....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=372824&mesg_id=372824

:evilgrin:

[Coexist]

14. LOL! Thanks for that link.

[Mendocino]

15. ANWR contains about 10 billion gallons

US consumption is about 20 million gallons a day.

This works out to be about 500 days supply, about a year and four months.

This isn't about supply, it's ABOUT profit!

[IDemo]

19. Just to clarify, US consumption is about 21 million barrels/day, not gallons. n/t

[DCKit]

16. Big Oil already has 26 million acres of leases they're not using.

Why are they holding the leases if they aren't using the land?

[Monk06]

17. The USGS is not telling the truth concerning arctic energy resources

They recently published a preliminary resource estimate for arctic Oil and Gas resources totalling 90 Billion barrels of Oil and 1,670 Tcf of Natural Gas. The problem is this is not a resource estimate in the traditional sense since it ignores economic issues regarding development and production costs. See below that they are basing their estimates on the notion of 'technically recoverable' resources.

"Technically recoverable resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. For the purposes of this study, the USGS did not consider economic factors such as the effects of permanent sea ice or oceanic water depth in its assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources." http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=2&storyid=12060

This notion is based on the state of existing technology not existing productive capacity. In other words we have drill rig technology that works at arctic depths and weather conditions. However there are on ten deep drill rigs in the world and eight of them are locked in ten year leases off the coast of Brazil.

In other words the 90 Billion bbl oil, 1,670 Trillion cf gas figure is pure speculation with a conservative downstream production potential of 20 or 30 years.

These resources might as well be on Mars for the good they will do in our lifetime

[Coexist]

18. thanks for the info.