Most of those European countries you speak of pay a much larger portion of that per gallon price in tax. On the flip side, you could look at China, India, or Venezuala who pay cents per gallon due to government subsidies.

 

Consider me as one of the 50% or so Americans who does not support your blanket statement of unlimited drilling within the US.

I am against offshore drilling and I am against drilling in ANWR. If we can get some oil shale out in Wyoming, or crude oil out in other areas in the US without damaging the environment too much, I would be for it (I think most people, including most environmentalists would support that).

To quote someone else:
That pretty much sums it up. Short term solution that does nothing to fix the overall long term problem. Effects on supply and prices would be negligible, except for damaging the environment. Even if prices came down, we would consume more oil (just look at the growth in oil use over the past 10 years when oil was dirt cheap). If we are really concerned about high oil prices, access to energy, and shipping the American wealth overseas (I guess that is a national security issue too), we should focus on alternative energy. Fortunately with these high oil prices, alternative energy is now becoming price competitive. There is only so much oil in the ground and it will run out eventually. I would rather we solve this problem now than wait for it to turn into a true crisis.

Fortunately, both presidential candidates are against off shore drilling and drilling in ANWR. So I would not count on this happening in the next 4-8 years. After that, the US will have cut oil consumption significantly enough to not worry about offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR.

 

yu're right., 160 DAYS @ a max output of 4.4 mill barrels a day.

 

The US uses approx 25% of the worlds oil and currently produces 2-3%. Oil companies are only using 25% of the land they currently have leases on and want more. Why?

So just for arguments sake lets say they are allowed to begin drilling offshore and in areas previously protected. Lets take it further and let them put a drill where ever they think they might be able to get oil because what is important here is oil and the price we are paying. It won't make any difference!! We still will be dependent on foreign oil and supply and demand will set the price. The only winner if we allow this drilling are the oil companies.

This proposal serves only those who don't need relief but is wrapped up to look like the savior to the hard working folks who are doing the real suffering.

 

True but their jobs also earn them cents per hour... Note, I'm not defending China, India, Venezuela and others for subsidizing their fuel but we must compare apples to apples. Most Indians for examples live on less than $2 per day! Don't see how they could possibly afford to pay $4 bucks per gallon of fuel.

Not sure how they could solve the problem in those countries but for our sake we should declare a State of Energy Emergency and void all rules that forbid drilling for oil. We should drill everywhere and then some. Also, we should make any and all energy production means tax-free: solar, wind power, nuclear, reusing, etc, etc...

Every dollar spent on oil costs us $10 bucks in additional weapons we need to buy so we can protect us from the terrorists...

 

Okay it is hard to not get political on this thread. I just don't see how airline pilots would be against drilling and instead importing our oil. Your job depends on us drilling in our own beautiful country. Oil spills happen somtimes, and we need to be responsible with it. However I would rather be a country that relies on ourselves, instead of some shiek in the desert.

 

It is true that opening new fields to drilling will not produce any new oil on the market until 2012 or so. Anyone here getting out of the industry, hitching up the horses to the wagon, eliminating their use of lawn mowers and other petroleum comsuming products (i.e plastics?) I thought not. Next question, anyone here care to guess what the price of oil will be in 2012 and beyond if we do NOT develop known sources of energy? I guess some folks truly cannot see past next month or just enjoy watching their income being sucked away as well as our current society as it is built on cheap energy. There is enough known reserves in the world to last well into next century. It is the "chicken littles" and the ethanol industry that perpetuate the myth we are out of oil. But what about after next century? Even if we don't find more oil, we have 200 years worth of energy in known coal reserves. After that? Natural gas. After that? Nuclear. After that? I don't know, my crystal ball doesn't work at 400 years down the road. The US is the only country that outlaws drilling for resources off our shores. I guess $4 a gallon isn't high enough. We need $10 a gallon before people will see that oil in the ground does not magically appear as gas in their tank. Somebody has to drill it and refine it. We currently do not allow that at levels which would help control the situation 4 years down the road and further in the future.

If all the "alternative" energy folks really think now is the time, STOP TAKING MY MONEY in the form of SUBSIDIES from the GOVERNMENT! Develop the energy and deliver me a finished product at a competitive price. I WILL buy it. But that's the dirty little secret isn't it? Bio-diesel and ethanol, as well as solar and wind, are NOT competitive on a large scale as of now. Therefore, develop the "cheap" energy first. It is the economic principle of "low hanging fruit." Gather it first.

 

U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 @ about 10.5 million bbls/day. That's why we transitioned to foreign oil and hence the massive pickle we're all in today. 10 years later (about 1980) we had 4 times as many drilling rigs on the ground here in the U.S., yet we were only producing about 6 million bbls/day of oil. In other words, we were drilling more, but producing less. The lesson here:

More drilling does not mean increased production. If the answer was as simple as just sticking more straws in our soil, we would have done that already. The problem here, simply put, is far more dire than most care to admit.

 

Granted I am not as learned as others about this but since oil is traded as a commodity, does it matter where the oil comes from? I guess what I'm asking is how is domestic oil any cheaper than foreign? And if it is purely increasing supply then don't ever expect prices to go down, I imagine the best we can hope for is a plateu and let inflation catch up over the years.

 

I think you bring up an interesting point in that if speculation is the root cause of oil prices skyrocketing, which many believe, why drill?

The fact that we're having a debate here re: more drilling seems to be the writing on the wall that people are finally coming to the conclusion that current oil prices are primarily driven by supply/demand issues.

On a side note, Chevron just had their oil operation in Nigeria sabotaged by militants, whole pipeline now out of service, which will reduce their production in Nigeria by about 200,000 bbls/day...It will be interesting to see how this might affect prices.