Phil Davis:
"I wouldnât be against drilling off the Florida or California coast if we had truly exhausted other efforts but make no mistake - this is simply a land grab by the oil companies, who are looking to lock up leases off of Florida, the way they have locked out the Gulf Coast from all competition. The map below indcates over
40Bn barrels of proven reserves that have been leased to XOM, et al, of which
less than 10% is under any stage of development.
This issue is not about actually producing oil, if it were, there are already
40.92Bn barrels leased in the area on the map and
210.37Tcf of natural gas. The problem is that the current leaseholders are only producing
2Mbd out of their current leasholds after
10 years on the current leasing program. Meanwhile companies like PBR, PRT, CEO and many Russian oil companies who ACTUALLY drill for oil have been increasing their production output 30-50% per year.
This is about the big 5 oil companies, who already hold
90% of the above leases, locking up the final
18Bn barrels of oil and
77Tcf of gas BEFORE someone who actually might want to drill gets a hold of it. Oh sure, theyâll drill the easy wells, the ones closest to shore that do the most immediate damage to the coast. But the major deposits in the deeper waters will remain the private reserves of XOM, BP, CVX, COP et al until they run up the price high enough to open their private gold mines and John McCain wants to just give them the keys - no strings attached.
Obama has been talking energy independence since February 2006, when he made a major speech on the subject to the Governorâs Ethanol Coalition. Oil was "only" $60 a barrel way back then but Obama said at the time "It would be nice if we could produce our way out of this problem, but itâs just not possible. We only have 3% of the worldâs oil reserves. We could start drilling in ANWR today, and at its peak, which would be more than a decade from now, it would give us enough oil to take care of our transportation needs for about a month."
http://www.philstockworld.com/2008/06/17/tuesdaytear-down/