There are more than 4 times as many working oil sites in the US now in 2012 than there were in 2009 and US oil production has been rising since 2009. Last year we imported less oil than we have in years – down from 60% to 50%. That’s increases in domestic production right there.
I was told four years ago that domestic production was too low and we needed to drill more here at home in order to bring down the price of gas.
Well, we’re drilling more, domestic production is up, and I still expect gas to hit $4.00 a gallon this summer.
No, I never believed that drilling was the solution. No matter how much we drill we can’t control the global oil market, and all US oil goes on the open market. It isn’t dedicated to domestic use and unless Congress forces it to be sold here and controls the prices, or we nationalize the oil industry, we can’t lower the price of gas by drilling for oil in the US.
Even the people talking about this know – or should know – that drilling more isn’t the solution. If drilling was the answer to our oil problem why isn’t anyone pushing the oil companies to drill? About 75% of offshore leases and more than 50% of onshore leases are not being developed.
Oil companies care about profit, not gas prices. They drill when the profit margin is high enough, and they can make money selling the leases so they don’t really care about production anyway. Of course that doesn’t help bring down the price of gas. Opening more land to drilling not only can’t help the price of gas it doesn’t even guarantee that any drilling will be done.
What we could do is lower demand by using more renewable energy sources, but I guess that just makes too much sense.
And for immediate help we could look at how market speculation, which is not being controlled within existing law, is a factor in all of this. Or is that just too rational?
Yes, I am very annoyed at the lies I have been hearing lately.
2 comments:
Do you have a source for your stats? Would be helpful as supporting background for "discussion" on the escalating price of gas.
I knew someone was going to ask me that as soon as I posted since I forgot to bookmark the sites I got the info from. But I did some research, or re-research, whatever.
The rig count info is from an article in the Houston Chronicle from February 19: http://www.chron.com/business/article/U-S-oil-gusher-blows-out-projections-3341919.php
I rounded the import numbers from a report I read. I found 2 articles that come close but they aren’t what I originally saw. There’s a Reuters article http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/us-usa-oil-imports-idUSTRE74O78R20110525 and a Financial Times article http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4611795a-63bb-11e1-9686-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1o6oe1kvY that come close to my numbers.
The oil lease info was from an Interior Department report I saw cited but I can’t find it now.
This time around I found raw data on wells from Hughes Baker that don’t quite support the Chronicle article, or I may just be misreading the charts, but they show at least 2.4 times as many wells as in 2009.
You can also get info on oil imports from the US Energy Information Agency. There’s another site I’ve used but I can’t remember it right now.
I hope that helps.
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