Oil drilling..1 perspective...

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Drill Here, Drill Now:
A Pipe Dream

Offshore Drilling

http://www.architecture2030.org/images/news/USOilConsumption.jpg

According to the US Energy Information Administration, oil production from drilling offshore in the outer continental shelf wouldn't begin until around the year 2017. Once begun, it wouldn't reach peak production until about 2030 when it would produce only 200,000 barrels of oil per day (in yellow above). This would supply a meager 1.2% of total US annual oil consumption (just 0.6% of total US energy consumption). And, the offshore oil would be sold back to the US at the international rate, which today is $106 a barrel. So, the oil produced by offshore drilling would not only be a "drop in the bucket", it would be expensive, which translates to "no relief at the pump".


From: http://www.architecture2030.org/news/news_090608.html#DrillHereDrillNow

The big thing is the end cost of the oil. We would still buy market price oil. Couple that with what OPEC has done in the last week, and we know that the price will not fall that much soon. We need more refineries to really get out from under our OPEC syringe.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

LMAO

Your sig is hilarious, didn't we just clarify the nonexistence of a "bush doctrine"? The see no, hear no, speak no is in no way related to reality. And your cutesy democracy logo contains a prominent Dutch acquistion. rofl

Bottom line is that increased attempts at production DO drive the price of oil down and if you couple that with increased refining production, it does help. The market still is driving to alternate solutions, which is the only real way to get them. Innovations do not come from govenrment stipulation, they come from free market entrepreneurs.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

And I don't mean to flame your sig so hard, but damn, I find it more than offensive to my intelligence.

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Off topic but yeah we did clarify no reality of a Bush Doctrine. Really there is no reality of Bush anything except war on terror...blah..blah..blah. Hence the Hear no evil...see no evil...speak no evil....play out. No matter where you look you can not nail out a bush doctrine. The Democracy sig I though was actually a pretty artistic way to express one's views. The Dutch acquisition just adds to the "sell out" of our economy and way of life to foreign entities. The "American Lager" just sold out. Why don't we just give back the Statue of Liberty? LOL. I do not take politics personal at all Dirge. I did see a disgusting interview with McCain on the Today show this morning. I wonder if someone could find the video? I want McCain to show me the decisive McCain he used to be when he was crossing aisles and pissing in everyone's sandbox. He has become someone else. I liked McCain a LOT about 1 yr ago. Not so much now.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

yeah no real harm intended, I just expected more lol :stick

The democracy one angers me because it is essentially an anit-capitalism thing. And hten to lump sell-outs like Budweiser and outright cheats like Enron with good companiews like Disney, Coke, AT&T, McDonald's is insulting. I'm surprised they didn't find a way to insert Wal-Mart or Halliburton in there. I mean, I don't understand the point. Democracy promotes a free market. 80% of which is dominated by 20% of the corporations. It's called the pareto principle. Some take advantage or outright break laws to give the other s a bad image. Most are true American Dream success stories which in turn empower and strengthen America and promote our democracy's infectious ideals of personal freedom and liberty. This is most recently seen in the Westernization of Eastern countries, driving the Imams crazy.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Not so fast Dirge. Don't play some of these companies as "good" companies like your own beloved AT&T. Do we need to bring up the break up of 1984 by anti trust legislature.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

I'm right there for alternative energy but it will take a long time to convert the US over to alternative energy resources. Obama even admitted to it being 30+ years.

There is a lot more oil than just offshore oil that we are currently blocked from drilling.

A few myths and facts
http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=9d64a628-d028-48c1-840d-330aea987841

[LA_MERC_LaTech]

Dirge...the slogan was printed on a flag bought at Wal-Mart...maybe? hehe

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

I'm not promoting Bush but I'm also not condeming him. There is no way to know how any other President would have reacted after 9/11, no way. I also like the fact where everything in the world is Bush's fault, especially when we have a democrate run congress.

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/bush43rdp/1st.htm

[LA_MERC_Nutria]

And let us not forget... Bush hates black people.

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

I'm right there for alternative energy but it will take a long time to convert the US over to alternative energy resources. Obama even admitted to it being 30+ years.

There is a lot more oil than just offshore oil that we are currently blocked from drilling.

A few myths and facts
http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=9d64a628-d028-48c1-840d-330aea987841

Very good link Toby, I read the whole article.

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Q. What is American Solutions?
A. American Solutions for Winning the Future is a new, non-partisan organization built around three goals: to defend America and our allies abroad and defeat our enemies, to strengthen and revitalize America’s core values, and to move government into the 21st Century. The General Chairman is former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Seems a little leaning in one way. Newt was the farthest from bi-partisan they came when he was in the gov't. He just managed to re-wrap a tootsie roll with the nice website.


Our mission is to become the leading grassroots movement to recruit, educate, and empower citizen activists and elected officials to develop solutions to transform all levels of government.

Isn't Newt the same guy that "forgot" or "made a mistake" and didn't pay a sh1t ton of taxes? I am sorry, but Newt Gingrich was part of the problem. He is not a solution. I guess he could change. I guess I would believe it more if it came from Petroleum engineers or a set of scientist, but Newt Gingrich..b4h.

I actually played a round of disc golf 3 weeks ago with 2 petroleum chemists/engineers whose sole job is to figure out how to extract more oil from the tar sands. A break through would be 1% more efficiency. They said they are not that close to another break though. They do work for Shell Oil and 1 is 1 yr away from retiring, and the other is 4 yrs away. They both make a great salary, per their own words, to keep cranking away at the problem. They said that there are more oil in the tar sands then all of the lower 48 wish they had. They just cannot extract it efficiently. They said if they can crack the mystery of it all, that Shell is sitting poised to be on of the top dogs in it all. I wish they could crack that mystery.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

Not so fast Dirge. Don't play some of these companies as "good" companies like your own beloved AT&T. Do we need to bring up the break up of 1984 by anti trust legislature.


lol sucka. Judge Greene had too much power in that case. What was the result? a lag in American telecom capabilities (due to regulation) versus the rest of the world. And for the record, I lied BellSouth much better.

My point was mainly that the company idealized the American dream as the others do as well.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

Seems a little leaning in one way. Newt was the farthest from bi-partisan they came when he was in the gov't. He just managed to re-wrap a tootsie roll with the nice website.

Examples?




Isn't Newt the same guy that "forgot" or "made a mistake" and didn't pay a sh1t ton of taxes? I am sorry, but Newt Gingrich was part of the problem. He is not a solution. I guess he could change.

Are you just making these things up? Do you have examples?



I actually played a round of disc golf 3 weeks ago with 2 petroleum chemists/engineers whose sole job is to figure out how to extract more oil from the tar sands. A break through would be 1% more efficiency. They said they are not that close to another break though. They do work for Shell Oil and 1 is 1 yr away from retiring, and the other is 4 yrs away. They both make a great salary, per their own words, to keep cranking away at the problem. They said that there are more oil in the tar sands then all of the lower 48 wish they had. They just cannot extract it efficiently. They said if they can crack the mystery of it all, that Shell is sitting poised to be on of the top dogs in it all. I wish they could crack that mystery.


I'm not sure why they need a break through. It seems as though it's well worth it to extract right now. I'm sure being more efficient would put more money in the pockets of the oil company but at the current cost of a barrel or oil, they should be doubling their profits from tar sands. Now, they could keep working on ways to make it more "enviromentally" sound but making it more effecient will just put more money in their pockets. They should be forced to extract.

The price per barrel of oil has dropped 35% in the past few months but the price of gas has only dropped 7%

We also need more refineries along with drilling. We need government to step up.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839



Economics
The average production cost of one barrel of syncrude from the oil sand resources in Canada was approximately 32 USD in the year 2006. The mining process costs about 16 USD2006/barrel of oil equivalent (boe). The InSitu SAGD extraction costs about 14 USD2006/boe, and the upgrading process to syncrude costs about 16.5 USD2006/boe. Figure 2 shows the break down of the total costs that were incorporated in the EROI calculations above (Herweyer 2007). Mining costs appear to be decreasing according to some reports in early 2008.

Syncrude has approximately the same quality as conventional crude oil, and is therefore competitive. So long as the conventional crude oil price stays above $31.5 USD2006/boe (excluding profits) it is profitable to extract oil sands. The conventional crude oil prices in 2006 were $56 and in 2007 as much as $80 USD/boe (BP 2006). However at the same time the price of diesel, natural gas, steel and so forth used in generating the syncrude were increasing. Nevertheless it appears that tar sands will be a competitive source of oil for the indefinite future.

[LA_MERC_Drax]

We need more refineries, biggest impact on the price of oil at the moment. I researched it for a few papers i wrote in college. The US sits on about 96% capacity on the refining capacity. There has not been a refinery built in the US in the last 27 years (this was the case in 2004), i've heard that they gave the OK to the guy outside pheonix thats been tryin to build one for the past 10 years.

My thoughts on drilling offshore of areas where we do not drilling in the US....

I'd like to drill in florida, could induce me to move and live there. The florida straights (between the keys and cuba) are already being drilled by china, just on cuba's side of the line. I don't even wanna know what the price per barrel to drill and produce of what we drill out where I am now, I just know its expensive....really expensive, like half a million a day to operate. Last year the well ran about 200 million to drill, thats not any production.

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

We do need refineries. I say we should give refineries a "free pass" on setting them up. Then when they get to producing we can look at regulating their emissions. Give huge breaks to refineries that "recycle" or "capture" the emissions and use them for doing other things in the plant. If we could get up to snuff on our refining, the oil issue would DIE. There would be no more excuses. We would independent. Drilling by itself only puts more oil out there for China to buy to ruin our economy and keep borrowing from China.

Thanks for the input Drax.


As far as capitalism. The residents of this fine country have just spent 900 BILLION dollars to "secure" our capitalistic ways. How much of the 900 BILLION did you all get? THe CEO of the companies netted a HELL of a lot more than I will from that, and if you performed that poorly in your job you would be fired. Not given more money to work things out.

[LA_MERC_Drax]

Here's another interesting thought:

We have plenty of oil in the US, its just not reasonable to obtain. In a very very simplistic view, we produce oil out of sandstone because it is pourous enough to allow flow. The other basic types of formations we drill in are Shalestone and salt (atleast in the gulf of mexico). Shalestone can contain alot of oil, it just won't flow out of the formation because it is waterbound inside of the clay ( shale is clay in a simple sense here). Think back to the simple chemistry here, oil and water do not mix, nor will they easily flow past each other. The clay bound water is attached to the clay due to polarity of the clay and water molecules. People have been tryin to develop for years ways to make the shalestone formations flow. I've heard a couple of theories, 1 is to heat the well and surronding formations up to 800 deg F and it would be fluid like in that nature. The problem ensueing in this is multiphase. First, heating a well up to 800 deg F, its improbable, and it would only allow the immediate area around the well to flow. In a sandstone, you can pull a whole field ( sometimes ranging in the area of a few sqaure miles) of oil out of one well. I'm about to head out to work tomorrow morning, so if you want anymore input from the angle i have, i'd be glad to share it.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

I'm pretty sure almost all refineries recapture byproducts to co-gen power. It is a necessity here in hurricane alley to stay up and running. Heck, some sell power back to the communities. I think what you really mean is using ESP's and the like to scrub emissions. That is not always required at this time and ESP's are EXPENSIVE.