Comments on: Is It Time To Tap U.S. Oil Reserves?

Energy Secretary Tells Congress Dipping Into Strategic Reserve Won't Reduce High Gas Prices

[missingamerica]

Of course the idiot forgot to mention that when you put the oil companies out of business you also put three million workers and their families out of business which would mean a instant Depression and nobody would need gas because everyone would be out of work. Great solution. Now if you were a Republican...

Posted by demslie at 02:16 PM : May 23, 2008

Now if you were a Republican, you''d tell a big fat lie and hope nobody went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs004.htm), where they would find that Oil and Gas Extraction is bundled with Mining - and the two combined sectors had a total employment of 619,000 in 2006.

[missingamerica]

...it is in OH and I don%u2019t believe we have a whole lot of oil here.

Posted by tazmjam at 02:16 PM : May 23, 2008

Actually, Ohio produced something like a billion dollars in oil and gas in 2006. To quote Ohio Department of Natural Resources (http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/mineral/publications/pdf/oilgas06.pdf) stats from 2006:

%u2022 5,566 registered well owners, including 4,120 domestic owners, operating 62,966 wells.
%u2022 Issued 2,291 permits, including 1,239 drilling permits.
%u2022 Issued 289 urbanized area permits in 19 counties.
%u2022 Drilled an estimated 952 oil and gas wells in 42 of Ohio%u2019s 88 counties.
%u2022 Monroe County was the most active county with 79 wells drilled.
%u2022 Produced 5,422,194 barrels of crude oil, at an average price of $62.43 per barrel.
%u2022 Produced more than 86 billion cubic feet of natural gas, at an average price of $7.75 per mcf.
%u2022 The combined market value of crude oil and natural gas production was $1,007,449,596.

Note that was at $62.43 per barrel of crude - in 2006. A barrel of crude in now worth twice as much, and drilling permits rise accordingly.

[tazmjam]

That is the end game - to put enough pressure on Joe and Jane Average American that they will tolerate unrestricted drilling everywhere and anywhere. Posted by ibsteve2u


I agree. I would bet that %u201CFuture%u201D commercial is running all over the US, it is in OH and I don%u2019t believe we have a whole lot of oil here. Speculators purchase unregulated Oil Futures Contracts, creating an inflated demand for oil in the market causing oil prices to skyrocket. The Oil Industry claims its supply and demand causing the high oil prices, and say they%u2019re running out of oil. Meanwhile, Washington sits on a 2006 Senate Subcommittee on Investigations Report that states speculators have contributed to rising US energy prices and recommends regulating OTC and ICE the same way NYMEX is regulated. Since 2006 when ICE was given permission to place terminals in the US for trading oil futures the price for a barrel of oil has DOUBLED. People are starting to panic and are ready to accept anything that will offer them some relief, and of course the oil industry says they can save the day by drilling in restricted areas of the US. What a sick corrupt game.

[demslie]

We should figure out how much each U.S. tax payer has spent on the Iraq war and the U.S. gov''''t (not the oil companies) should go take oil from Iraq and give it directly to the tax payers until they have been reembursed for what we have been forced to spend on Iraq. Lets face it this war was about oil, no real American really cares about arabs.

Posted by killtheliars
Of course the idiot forgot to mention that when you put the oil companies out of business you also put three million workers and their families out of business which would mean a instant Depression and nobody would need gas because everyone would be out of work. Great solution. Now if you were a Republican, you would think, we have a huge pool of oil right off the south Florida coast. We cannot drill for it because Democrats and Environmental Wackoos stopped the United States from drilling. But China, Cuba and Venezuela can drill there. And Venezuela gets the oil from our territory and then sells it back to us. Democrats allowed this to happen because America is BAD and the Communists are nice environmentally conscious people.

[killtheliars]

We should figure out how much each U.S. tax payer has spent on the Iraq war and the U.S. gov''t (not the oil companies) should go take oil from Iraq and give it directly to the tax payers until they have been reembursed for what we have been forced to spend on Iraq. This will give tax payers free gas (well not free but already paid for) and will cripple the oil companies as well as the futures traders who are left holding crertificates for overpriced gas that is no longer needed.
If Iraq won''t give up the oil pull out tomorrow and let the country destroy itself. Lets face it this war was about oil, no real American really cares about arabs.

[missingamerica]

It is all a big game, anyway.

You know...all of these "coincidences" that raised the price of petroleum-related energy, from destabilizing the Middle East, to invading Iraq without making more than a token effort to bring Iraq''s oil production potential online, to the all too predictable increase in demand from China, India, et al, to the White House point-blank refusing to regulate the hedge funds and traders which allowed them to run amok?

lolll...with all of these oil men installed in our Exeuctive Branch? A VP who is on record as stating "Oil remains fundamentally a government business."?

The same VP who held a still-secret meeting with the wheels of Big Oil so soon after they were elected?

They didn''t know what would happen to energy prices with everything they were doing - and so couldn''t be expected to take any proactive measures?

I mean, c''mon...Ya''ll should watch the API commercial at http://www.api.org/aboutapi/ads/...the one titled "Future". (Assuming you haven''t seen it already - they''ve been pumping it out in selected markets where oil drilling already occurs.)

That is the end game - to put enough pressure on Joe and Jane Average American that they will tolerate unrestricted drilling everywhere and anywhere.

[notblue]

This article is not about the strategic reserve it''s about using our own UNTAPPED sources! ANWAR, Prudo Bay, the Gulf coast, the East and West coasts hold enough OIl and NATURAL GAS to power 60 million vehicles and 60 million homes for 200 hundred years. Prices are based on refinning capacity and WORLD DEMAND. The U.S. hasn''t built a refinery since the seventies and CHINA and INDIA have become much larger users. If we increase the SUPPLY by using our own resources it would be a hedge against speculation and decrease our dependence on foriegn oil. It is politcians and NOT COMMON SENSE that refuse to use these vast UNTAPPED resources. Wake up people, stop placing blame on the oil companies place blame on SUV loving Americans, politicians, and the misconceptions they continuie to perpetuate and generate regarding the safe extraction of our own energy resources!

[boffo1962]

I think we should ask employers to change to a 4-day work week. For many, saving one round-trip to and from work could make a huge difference at the pump.

[missingamerica]

We should leave the SPR alone.

The Republicans have succeeded in damaging our economy and wearing out both our offensive and defensive war-making capabilities.

If the SPR is tapped, it places us in the same position as passengers on a cruise ship who have been permitted to use the emergency water rations on all of the life boats: Assuming nothing bad will happen at the risk of their lives.

lollll...or - to use a more recent example - in the same position as those Americans who took out "bubble" ARMs because they assumed that the Republican promises of a growing economy based upon "trickle down" economics held even a smidgeon of truth.

To finish the thought, if we burn through the SPR and something bad does happen, it will bring the Republicans'' apparent attempt to utterly destroy the United States of America to a successful conclusion.

[prairiefox1]

IT IS CALLED
''PRICE FIXING"

[prairiefox1]

REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN THERE WERE GAS WARS AND THE PRICE OF GAS WAS LOW? IN THOSE DAYS THE OIL COMPANIES ONLY SUPPLIED THEIR BRANDED STATIONS!
NOW IT IS PUT IN THE STOCK MARKET AND WE PAY A HIGHER PRICE AND THERE WILL NOT BE A GAS WAR BECAUSE IN ESSENCE THE PROCESS HAS PRICE FIXED THE COST AT THE PUMP!

[brianp55]

Iraq = Strategic Oil Reserve #2

Let''s drain it.

[tazmjam]

Speculators purchasing large crude oil contracts are CREATING an additional DEMAND for oil. They drive up the price the same way an additional demand for contracts delivered today drives up the price of oil on the spot market.

Case in point: The Natural Gas Market in 2006, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations found

1. A single Hedge Fund Armaranth Advisors LLC, dominated the Natural Gas Market in 2006.
2. In Aug 2006 Armaranth traded natural gas contracts on ICE instead of NYMEX so that it could trade without any restrictions on size of its positions.
3. Armaranth%u2019s actions in causing significant price movements in the natural gas market demonstrates that excessive speculation distorts prices, increase volatility, and increases cost and risk to consumers, such as utilities, who ultimately pass on inflated cost to their customers.
4. Trading on ICE affects the prices on NYMEX

Pretending what happened in the Natural Gas Market in 2006 is not happening now in the Oil Market is ridiculous. Since 2006 when ICE was permitted to put its trading terminals in the US for trading US oil futures the price of oil has DOUBLED. ICE and OTC need to be regulated.

[photogeezer]

Leave the oil reserves alone until the REAL crisis - no gas at the pump to buy. We''ll need to keep the armed-to-the-teeth loonies from killing each other ands us at the pumps.

Force people to dump their stupid SUV''s and non-working large trucks. And, better still, out of Iraq, the sooner the better. Aghanistan should be a world effort, or just send in Special Forces and Ranger teams to get the Binster, and let the fools kill each other. We can''t afford these silly oil-fueled military adventures any more.

[andylance1]

Area 121 in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico is a perfect example why we are paying so much at the pump.
Two years ago, Pete Domenici, of New Mexico , rebuffed concerns that the drilling bill bans leasing within 100 miles of the Florida coast. Critics contend that the buffer is insufficient to protect the state''s beaches from environmental harm.

"The risk to Florida is so minimal - if even existent - compared to the benefits," Domenici said.

The legislation specifically orders the Interior Department Secretary to open 2.9 million acres of a portion of the Gulf known as Area 181 within one year.

Domenici said the area opened by the bill holds an estimated six trillion cubic feet of natural gas - "enough to heat nearly six million homes for 16 years."

"This is the most significant American asset available that could reduce the price of natural gas or stabilize it," Domenici said. "It is so imminent and so large in quantity that it would have that effect."

The bill was killed and now we are paying the piper.

[dir57]

No. Don''t tap it. In fact, we should be filling it. The SOR is for true emergencies to keep the USA going in the event of a supply disruption. At this time we can get as much oil as we want if we are willing to pay for it. This isn''t an oil embargo like in 1973.

[bobbyduck1]

Before I start, please know that I am very definitly NOT a fan of big oil or the band of egomaniac criminals that make up Bushit and company. I would be ever so happy if all of the oil CEOs and their white-house toadies were relocated to Guantanamo for some "re-orientation training". After all, we are assured that it is quite humane down there....

But the reserve is just that, and if we empty it there will be none. Of course that won''t do if there''s another event like Katrina or worse.

If we empty it hoping to drive prices down, OPEC can simply slow production by a similar amount and prices won''t come down.

Then we will have to fill the reserve back up, because we really do need it, it''s not entirely a neo-con boondoggle. But guess what, that will increase demand and drive prices even higher...

So we will empty it at $132/barrel and $4/gallon, still get bloodied at the pump, and then refill it at say $200/barrel and drive gas up to maybe $6/gallon.

Wow that would really help.

Our only hope at this point is for a new administration and new filibuster-proof congress that don''t worship at the altar of big oil.

[prairiefox1]

SHUT DOWN THE MARKET AND LET THE OIL COMPANIES SUPPLY ONLY THEIR STATIONS!

[brianp55]

If we allow the American oil companies greater access to federal lands, such as ANWAR, there is no doubt that they will go in there and harvest oil like crazy. However, many individuals seems to have the mistaken idea that because this oil is from US lands, it will, somehow, be cheaper and will result in cheaper gas. Once that oil is removed from the ground, its price per barrel will be determined by the World Market, just like oil being pumped in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, Exxon and Chevron are free to sell this oil and gas to anyone they wish. So oil being pumped in Alaska could very well end up in China or India. More oil hitting the market will blunt the dramatic price increases that we have seen recently, but I believe that it will only have an incremental effect in actually reducing prices.

[prairiefox1]

I use to be a trader for living so you''''re not going to snow me with any of your rhetoric.

Again, the bottom line is that speculators are ruining our country by artificially driving up crude oil prices. - shanev137

Lying about yourself isn''''t going to make a point that can''''t be made. Once again, your market maker on the exchange floor is filling orders by taking orders from the actual buyers who are paying for delivery of the tangible commodity. The price on the futures contract is irrelevant in that procedure. The price on the futures contract is what the buyer of the futures contract agreed to pay, not what the commodity will actually be sold for.

If you had any knowledge of the subject you would know that.


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Posted by Martel_V
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IN OTHER WORDS YOU WOULD BUY A COMMODITY AND SELL IT FOR NO PROFIT?
NO ! YOU WOULD BUY IT AND DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE A KILLING! AND TO DO THAT YOU SELL IT FOR AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! FOR A THIEF YOU ARE A VERY POOR LIER!