<p>The Reps and Dems are equally addicted. To end their addiction, the two addicts must work together in a bipartisan manner.</p>
<p>Yeah, right. Tell me another story. It is bipartisanship that created this mess. Bipartisanship is a sham.</p>
<p>What we are need are answers and solutions where they are clear losers.</p>
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The price of oil and the oil itself are two separate considerations. We can track where the oil goes and it would go to America. The price of the oil, however, would be set by market prices set outside of America. Right now we get more oil from Canada than Saudia Arabia, but we still get some oil from them.</p>
<p>And it matters how, exactly? Does the oil come with a flag sticker on it? If others bid more for it, the U.S. won’t get ANY of the Alaska oil, such as it is. Do you want to mess with “free trade” (doesn’t exist) and “free markets” (don’t exist)?</p>
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And please don’t tell me you think the Democrats are not in bed with the oil companies. Bill Clinton and Al Gore brought us the mergers of Exxon and Mobil, Bp and Amaco, Chevron and Texco, etc. Democrats are addicted to big oil. Now they complain about the hugh profits Exxon is making, but they did much to make sure ExxonMobil has the largest possible profits from screwing the lower income people in America.</p>
<p>I’m with you! (but you don’t cure an addiction by feeding it further…)</p>
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<p>What? Haven’t you read the OP and this entire thread? </p>
<p>I can’t imagine what you are thinking other than perhaps you are confusing oil pricing/demand-supply and oil security.</p>
<p>Oil pricing/demand-supply indicates that in our world market oil drilled in Alaska will in all likelihood be exported to Asia. It will go to the highest bidder, in other words. And all indicators are that the bids will be going higher and higher and higher whether or not we add the Alaska drops to the proverbial bucket.</p>
<p>Oil security says that if tomorrow Canada or Saudi Arabia decided not to sell to us, we’d still have sources of our own within the US.</p>
<p>My, there are several people posting here who don’t seem to understand economics.</p>
<p>“Oil security says that if tomorrow Canada or Saudi Arabia decided not to sell to us, we’d still have sources of our own within the US.”</p>
<p>Not if we’ve already sold it. Not under “free trade” or “free markets”. Under current arrangements, it wouldn’t increase oil security one iota. </p>
<p>We might increase oil security by annexing Venezuela. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>mini: The problem with your attitude of “let us have clear losers” is that even if you succeed there will be a day when you are the loser and the destructive cycle will continue. It doesn’t need to be that way. There are “win-win” solutions. </p>
<p>“Bipartisan” may not be the best term- it implies an agreement among two partisans. “Non-partisan” may be the appropriate term.</p>
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I would strongly support this action, but only if Mini is placed in charge of the new territory. Possibly it could be renamed Minizuela. Yea, I like that.</p>
<p>I am ALREADY the clear loser. Mass transportation has been totally stymied, and destroyed in many of the places where it once existed. I have to commute to work. My world is getting warmer (that’s a win - I look forward to beachfront property). Producing new cars - even environmentally sound ones - are a tremendous energy drain, especially when one adds in all the shipping. War and the threat of war and the need for military bases and defense of shipping lanes is a tremendous energy sinkhole - we can all ride around in Prius’ and won’t do a bit of good while the Army is riding around in armored Humvees.</p>
<p>Al Gore - who through his pursuit of free trade, NAFTA, and globalization - is more responsible for global pollution and global warming and than any single individual in the 20th century - says the point of no-return is 2015. I have no reason to doubt him. And I see no plan, certainly none from the rightwing Dems running from President, that get anywhere even in the neighborhood of dealing with these problems effectively by 2015. And so I continue to be the loser.</p>
<p>I would like to see the loser-load distributed every once in a while. But I certainly don’t expect it, and especially not through bipartisanship, which made me the loser to begin with.</p>
<p>Per the oil dude in our family (my dh), refuge oil would likely be shipped to US rather than China because the netback to producers would be higher (based on cheaper transportation costs). Currently China gets most of their oil from the Middle East and West Africa. </p>
<p>He really likes the idea of Minizuela btw.</p>
<p>I’d leave the stuff in the ground until the price becomes $2 or even 3 trillion (US$). No sense in taking it out when we can still buy oil from someone else.</p>
<p>I also vote for MiniZuela. :)</p>
<p>But, concur, that ANWR oil will come to US for two reasons, both political. Currently, by law, all oil pumped out of Prudhoe Bay must be shipped domestically. It would be esay enough to extend that law to ANWR. Second, the current fields are declining rapidly. If the oil is drilled from ANWR does not come down the west coast, the BP Refinery at Cherry Point (Washington) would go out of business. (The Cherry Point refinery was built by ARCO to solely process Alaska crude.) While some enviros might like the idea of closing a US refinery, not sure the state of Washington would since it would lose jobs and a tax base…</p>
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<p>But oil is still sold to a world market and so by definition the supplies are fungible. So whether the oil goes to China or is shipped domestically, the price is determined globally.</p>
<p>Is this so hard to understand? There is nothing in the Alaska oil stores that promise any kind of dramatic help keeping down the cost of oil.</p>
<p>Isn’t wonderful that as we contemplate and discuss our increasing dependency on oil, we send off our best and brightest “S & D’s” ,our future scientists and engineers . In them, we place our hope in resolving the fate of the world. In the long term, I know we can place our trust in them. It’s up to us to come up with a short term solution. We can do it we just have to come together and put politics aside.</p>
<p>“But oil is still sold to a world market and so by definition the supplies are fungible. So whether the oil goes to China or is shipped domestically, the price is determined globally.”</p>
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<p>Absolutely. Price is a ‘world price’. But netback varies because of cost to transport. My post was addressing the concerns that ANWR oil would end up in China.</p>
<p>Another thing dh agrees with that has been expressed here…ANWR oil will not solve supply or price issues. And he’s card-carrying Republican oil company exec with 25 years in the industry (and no, he doesn’t have horns… ;)). While he thinks all the claims that drilling in ANWR is equivalent to environmental disaster are a bunch of hype, he also says claims that drilling there will solve all woes is also hype. </p>
<p>But…he’d like to drill there; says there is no reason not to at current prices and the caribou won’t mind a bit. Seriously, he says the US should look at ANWR oil not as something to provide immediate economic relief from current supply/price problems, but as a ‘strategic reserve’ of sort that would provide us relief in the case of war or other disaster that would interrupt supplies from SA and ME. If the gov’t opened ANWR to drilling today, we would be 5-10 years from any oil making it to the lower 48.</p>
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<p>Glad to know an oil exec. agrees with me that drilling in Alaska won’t affect oil prices that much. Glad to know, also, that he saw the distinction between the two following concepts, though I called it oil security and he used the commonly used term strategic reserve:</p>
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<p>Again, in the above statement the important point is that for the purposes of pricing, the global market is key. And that there could be an interest in creating a strategic reserve.</p>
<p>Now here’s the QUESTION for hubby:</p>
<p>Why would an oil company see a lot of interest in drilling for a bunch of oil only to store it for a later day? If an oil company drills for oil, the demands of the financing of that drilling will put pressure on the company to sell that oil now. If we want a strategic reserve, we’ll need government mandates and perhaps even need the government to contract to undertake the activity itself, won’t we?</p>
<p>But anyway as to the OP’s original point:</p>
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<p>Husband oil executive and several others in this thread have indicated that what may actually be insanity is to do anythingg other than leaving this oil to sit in a strategic reserve. And certainly, it would be insanity to pump the oil expecting that anything grand would happen to the price of oil.</p>
<p>yes, BH, drilling in ANWR will have little effect on pricing and world supply, but it will have an effect on US supply, i.e., the amount we have to purchase overseas.</p>
<p>bluebayou - yes, but a small effect. Nothing that is a remedy for our currently uncomfortable economic situation.</p>
<p>bedhead - private sector vs. gov’tal…yep, that’s the big question. But, bottom line development for any venture does not occur overnight. </p>
<p>When I ask dh why price of crude so high, the candid answer is ‘no one knows’. According to him, we are in a period of unprecedented, explosive demand that sees no end; and the only economic relief is in the development of alternate energy sources. All refineries in the US are well, to over, stocked. Saudis and other big producers are not playing with supply. It is imperative prices drop for the overall economic health of not just the US but the world. Of course, for him, a founder in a private equity startup situation, high prices are good because it lowers risk for his investors. But, no one, not even oil co execs, like to see prices this high. </p>
<p>btw…good book to read…“Twilight in the Desert” by Matthew R. Simmons, regarding the Saudi’s ability to fuel the world. He recommends it.</p>
<p>“bluebayou - yes, but a small effect. Nothing that is a remedy for our currently uncomfortable economic situation.”</p>
<p>Perhaps, but if you look at the amount of oil that we get from the Middle East, the amount that could come from ANWR to displace a disruption of the flow from an unstable MidEast is huge. We could be, in effect, no longer reliant on MidEast oil.</p>