Gas prices could go down if??

[Lindsay Richards]

There is a huge difference in these estimates of shale oil (by a factor of 15). Where did these come from and how old are they? I have been reading about the 1.5 or so trillion for quite a while and that mile deep also seems off from a lot I have read. What is the source of that info please. It talks about presidential candidate John McCain, so that would put it at least 2 1/2 years old. I am pretty sure that the info is way off.

[Hooligan]

midniteoyl: Changling charlie has reversed again, yesterdays paper said EX-governor Charley Crist and former FL CFO Alex Sink are now trying to get a referendum put on Florida's ballot to ban offshore drilling. Saw your (R) after Crist, he ran as an (I) but vascilated every which way.
The Dept of Energy head, Steven Chu, stated "we need to get US gas prices up to the European level of 7-8 dollars/gallon to reduce consumer demand". Also wants to shut down coal fired power plants. There is a concerted effort to restrict additional drilling.
Sure hope the support for the new oil has results..

[bachler]

I respect everyones opion; And I'd like to share mine. First We have been blessed;; That being said , We have several rental houses in the Seattle Area; We also have Land in the Bakken oil reserve; Now my point of view #1 lets pump all the off shore, other Countrys Oil out of the ground; Then we can drill and pump our oil/My oil;; I like that, #2 the oil price is Set by a worthless Group of people called OPEC. They need to go and oil/crude price needs to be a self controling enterprise. That would bring the price to a respectable price;; Oh I pumped Many of gallons For .17 cents per gallon, and bought Buldurm for a nickel a sack, Tailor mades Were .15 a pack then when Paulmull The long ones came out they were .17 cents per pack The same price as a gallon of gas. I also worked at the service station, Made .35 cents per Hour; This was in the early 1950s, dad would say save fuel, on the farm Diesel was about .07 cents per gallon.. Being lucky to have lived to an old age one can look back and sometimes say remember the good old days. we didn't have electricity tell in 1948. and our light was white gas in pump up lamps with inflated Mantels on them we had to keep them pumped up. Oh also No indoor plumbing; You got your water from the well pump; the well also served as a refrigerator; we had a rope to let the food down a ways to keep it cool. Our work force also included Horses to Take us to school in the wagon/sled inthe winter time. Most of the time we walked 1 1/2 miles each way; And I hear kids complain now I can only say ask ?? what is happening to this world.. I hpoe I did not bore you; May god bless.. Life is so good. Just to short;; OH we made our own soap and whiskey.

[Lindsay Richards]

The only problem with that idea is that the $700 billion a year and growing is crippling our country and we don’t know how long it will last. We are already spending billions a year on developing cheap sources of energy, but are a long way off. According to this we have about 40 years of domestic before we would have to need alternatives and I (in my own mind) think that in 40 years we will have found several ways to make energy cheap and easy. Probably from some way we haven’t even thought of yet. Can you imagine the value of a cheap energy source? The company that developed it would make Bill Gates look like a piker. The incentive is there and Americans have always risen to the challenge before. Why ruin our economy by paying OPEC trillions of dollars for several decades on to discover the oil we left in the ground isn’t needed anymore? The trillions of bbls of oil and the huge amount of natural gas in North America totals up to more fossil fuels that has been used by mankind since we switched over from sperm whale oil for lighting. It is a world wide market and our drastically increasing production would drop the price drastically and those OPEC nations would not be rolling in our money and sending folks to blow us up again. The energy department recently said it would take between 15 and 20 years to get any oil from ANWR in Alaska. A congressional panel determined that the time was mainly permitting and red tape. If we made it a national goal, we could streamline regulations and build the 70 mile pipeline from the existing pipeline and fill it’s unused capacity of 1.7 millions bbls a day within 3 years. With slant drilling the total foot print would be 2,000 acres out of a total in ANWR of over 25,000,000 acres. It is all about politics. Logic is not involved.

[rops]

These both are interesting articles on oil. Using these two sources we would not need OPEC. Our government and enviromentalist are the problem. If we would put all the people that don't want us to use Americas oil to walking instead of driving and Flying there would be enough oil and gas for the rest of us. LMAO

Western Oil Fields

Oil on Demand

[wa8yxm]

It has long been known that the oil is there.. However getting oil out of the "Shale oil" fields is expensive when compared to how they do it now. (Not all that much more but remember these are the kind of folks who count the olives in a salad or the tomato pieces and say "No more than x" because.. Well, we do not want to spend $.001 more than we have to now do we)

I might add that the example happens to be an airline, not an oil company but.. Same kind of person.

So they won't spend a cent more than they have to to put a gallon of gas in the stations tank.. They will, however, find any excuse they can to up the price of that gallon.

[Lindsay Richards]

The extent of the Western shale oil has only fairly recently been discovered (around 1.5 trillion bbls). The congressional mandate against testing has been in affect for about 4 years or so. Shell Oil was the one who was doing most of the testing and indicated that they could make a profit with the oil prices around $60/ bbl which is way below today’s price (unfortunately). I think economies of scale would hopefully lower the price. It would also do away with the concept of using food (corn) for fuel and help reduce world food prices. If the US were given free rein on that, I think that it would be the set of the world price. The Texas fracturing system is much less costly and the amount of oil discovered there is still being increased. Our war on fossil fuels is going to be very expensive.

[Midniteoyl]

Reducing the food (corn) prices is a simple matter of doing away with the Farm Bill...

[R1Kirby]

This country was founded on becoming independant nation. It appears that today we have become very much dependant nation. Secondly, we are to busy taking care of other countrys at the tax payers expense. Keep our money at home and the economy will inprove. Let's become ndependent and take care of our own FIRST!!!

[JayGee]

I need to remind myself at times that the oil companies are a business that wants to make a profit. They are not really that interested in doing the "right" thing for the people (by keeping prices as low as possible) or the environment (by preserving our earth's beauty as we know it). They will produce a product as cheaply as possible and sell for as much as the market will provide.
I would like to think that their interest was different from that but it is not. I also wish I had bought oil company stock a long time ago.

[chasfm11]

Originally Posted by JayGee

I need to remind myself at times that the oil companies are a business that wants to make a profit. They are not really that interested in doing the "right" thing for the people (by keeping prices as low as possible) or the environment (by preserving our earth's beauty as we know it). They will produce a product as cheaply as possible and sell for as much as the market will provide.
I would like to think that their interest was different from that but it is not. I also wish I had bought oil company stock a long time ago.

Not to get into the old debate about oil companies but any company should be in the business of making money. As a stock holder, that is what I want them to do versus going bankrupt like Blockbuster. The real culprit in the price of gas at the pump is not the oil companies but the commodity traders. They were driven overseas a number of years ago because of excessive US Federal regulations and now they have almost no regulation. Speculators bid up the prices and cash in on the peaks. It has very little to do with the laws of supply and demand.

[Stogie]

Lets throw this into the mix also. Along with supply of Oil the other bottleneck is production of Diesel and Gasoline. We have a limited number of refineries and the Government has regulated the industry to the point that it is almost impossible to build more, and becoming more difficult to maintain and continue production in the existing ones.

[Lindsay Richards]

The last US refinery was built over 20 years ago and the last nuclear plant was over 30. We need to tap our own oil and tell these terrorist to go pound sand which they have a lot of.

[R1Kirby]

Okay, I just heard on the CBS Early Show that because of the termoil in Egypt our gas prices will go up. What????