Oil Independence Right Now

[Nickodell]

Remember folks telling you all about Congress
not allowing the development of our own oil (for
politically correct and/or invironmentally correct
reasons) while we have to pay $4.20 a gallon. Just
read the e-mail below that I received from a
friend:

Just poking around the Internet recently, I
'Googled' the search 'Untapped U.S. Oil Reserves,'
and the result (like the current price of a gallon
of gas. Go ahead, take a minute and see for youself!
Never mind, I'll share some of the highlights:

1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it.
The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April
('08) that only scientists and oilmen/women knew was
coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report
(hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was
in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota;
western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ...
check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery
since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential
to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates
it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the
oil is recoverable at $107 a barrel, we're looking at
a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could
practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no
idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's
financial analyst.

'This sizeable find is now the highest-producing
onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,'
reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation
known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly
referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from
Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into
Canada. For years, U.S. oil exploration has been
considered a dead en d. Even the 'Big Oil' companies
gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.
However, a recent technological breakthrough has
opened up the Bakken's massive reserves and we now
have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And
because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of
barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American
economy for 41 years straight.

2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor,
then this next one should - because it's from TWO
YEARS AGO, people!

U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000
feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains
lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world
is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005
President Bush mandated its extraction.[(???)What
the!??]

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil
inside our borders, than all the other proven
reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:

-8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
-18-times as much oil a s Iraq
-21-times as much oil as Kuwait
-22-times as much oil as Iran
-500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it's all
right here in the Western United States.

HOW can this BE!? HOW can we NOT BE extracting
this!? Because we've not DEMANDED Legislation to
come out of Washington allowing its extraction,
that's why!

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says
we've got more oil in this very compact area than
the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION
barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven
oil reserves of crude oil in the world today,
reports The Denver Post.

Don't think 'Big Oil' will drop its price - even
with this find? Think again! It's all about the
competitive marketplace, and if they can extract
it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it
for less - and if they DON'T, others will. It
will come down - it has to.

Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so! Now,
while you're thinking about it and hopefully
P.O'd, do this:

3. Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax
or good old-fashioned letter to our elected
officials in Washington and their respected
leaders. We'll start with them, and here's how
you can send them your e-mail/fax, DEMANDING the
immediate Legislation/an Energy PLAN that calls
for tapping into these (OUR OWN!) Reserves, as
well as allowing for the offshore drilling for
OUR oil, in OUR offshore waters and Inter-
continental shelf ... not to mention Alaska.

Technology ain't what it used to be people (ever
had arthroscopic surgery?). They can surgically
extract OUR oil, and get us on the way to at
east some measure of Energy independence.

If you don't take a little time to do this, then
you should stifle yourself the next time you
want to complain about gas prices because by
doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to
complain.

 

[TulsaAlpine]

Export that is the question?

OK we do have the oil, but remember it is a GLOBAL Market and what will keep our Conservative oil companies (Not) from exporting every drop we have to another country?
Free Enterprise correct even though our government attach's tariffs, sanctions etc. what will keep our wonderful greedy oil companies from selling our oil to china? I think that are legislators are looking at OPEC that already has control of our oil companies they all signed an agreement so what is the next step how do you extract the greatest find and use it just for you country when your own companies are already in cahoots with a Global Market? Wonder why no one undermines the current price? Seriously what would stop a small company from taking crude oil in Oklahoma and refining it at a local refining plant, (3 still in Oklahoma) and selling it for 3 dollars a gallon? NO small local owned oil company thats why it is a monopoly not a free market.

Donna

 

[Bill Blue]

What's with the "hold the presses" letter writing stuff? The Basin has been a major source of oil and natural gas for 20 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williston_Basin

Bill

 

[Nickodell]

You have to remember that OPEC is almost totally composed of countries that hate the US - Venezuela, Iran and the Arab states. Also, Mexico, our second-largest supplier, has no love for this country. At the moment OPEC acts in the same way that DeBeers Consolidated does with diamonds. Diamonds are actually not rare; there are places in S. Africa where you can literally walk along a river bank and trip over showers of them. DeBeers keeps the price high by restricting the number of stones released onto the market each year. OPEC does the same with oil. If a company with large numbers of diamonds thinks of selling them in competition, DeBeers just buys the company. If some country with huge numbers of stones, like Kenya, decided to dump them on the market, a flawless 2ct. stone might drop to a couple of hundred dollars.

The release of tens of millions of barrels of light, sweet crude onto the market, originating right here, should have the same effect by breaking OPEC's hold.

We need to do something right now. Israel is almost certain to attack Iran, because of that country's determination to develop its own nuclear weapons (Israel is reputed to have 150). When (not if) that happens, look to crude topping $300 a barrel, and gasoline over $10 a gallon, or even middle east countries barring exports to the US, as they did in 1979.

 

[TulsaAlpine]

Home Grown problem

This is from wikipedia, how to you stop the largest oil company in America from exporting your home grown oil?
Your 100 percent right our gasoline situation is just like the DeBeers diamond cartel, mafia so how do we break them?

Shell is the market leader for the supply of gasoline to the motorist through approximately 25,000 Shell-branded gas stations in the US which also serve as Shell's most visible public presence. Shell Oil Company is a 50/50 partner with the Saudi Arabian government-owned oil company Saudi Aramco in Motiva Enterprises, a refining and marketing joint venture which owns and operates three oil refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It also holds 80% of an exploration firm called Pecten that explores and drills in various offshore locations including the oil basin near Douala, Cameroon in cooperation with the French government-owned Elf Aquitaine. [1]

Donna

 

[65beam]

oil independence

opec is not to blame for the current prices nor is the lack of crude . there is plenty of crude . the problem right now is speculation. what this amounts to is the commodity brokers of the world are making millions of dollars a day buying and selling paper contracts of oil. the petroleum marketers of america have asked all members nationwide to sign a form letter asking for tighter controls on who and how trading is done. on the nymex alone the average dollars traded on oil futures in one day is 1.7 TRILLION dollars . these buyers never take delivery of the first gallon. it's all on paper. the chief anaylist for one fund said on cnbc today that they had to keep trading, they could not take delivery of the crude. they're not in the oil business. last week the feds said that goldman sachs was not doing anything illegal, but they were manipulating prices . they also found that one firm in london that is a big trader of oil futures world wide is actually a shell corp of an atlanta firm. they pay no taxes on their income to the U.S.neither are the big funds . they pay taxes on only a small portion of their income from trading oil futures .until the loopholes are closed, blame youselves since you voted for the guys you put in congress . that is the opinion of myself and thousands of guys in the business that sell wet barrels every day of the week . even opec countries think crude should be in the 65.00 to 70.00 range,not where it is now. get the speculators out of the trading and it will settle back . research what is going on and you will understand.also ,FYI, the crack spread in many cities is a negative figure at this point . that tells you the market is overinflated .

 

[Bill Blue]

This evenings Public TV Nightly News had a piece about drilling for natural gas on public lands in the Wyoming Rockies. The local ranchers and hunters are fighting it.

Higher prices caused by speculators? How can that be, thats the free market in action!

Bill

 

[Nickodell]

You have to remember that the traders who are getting such flak are acting on behalf of millions of individuals and organizations, such as mutual funds, cities and unions, also giant pension funds. The specualtive bubble will certainly break, the same way that the internet/telecom bubble did in the late 90s (leading to the recession that started in 2000, not under Bush II's first administation, despite what you hear).

Problem is that when it does burst, billions of dollars in retirement savings and pension funds will disappear with it.

On a selfish note; the price of gasoline doesn't bother me much, as my total annual mileage, including my wife's, is about 9,000, and 2/3 of this is a deductible business expense. It's the cost of heating oil that has me really worried, plus the knock-on extra costs of everything transported by truck that we all end up paying. I plan to avoid the heating oil problem by switching to electric heating.

 

[65beam]

free market

bill,
you tell me it's a free market the next time you go to fill up your vehicle. this also opens up another can of worms that even the refiners are fighting .the one guy on tv today had no idea what the inventory numbers this week even meant . they don't care what they do to the economy or to their fellow citizens as long as they make enormous profits for themselves . it's dragging everything down and that means less jobs . look at all the manufacturing going overseas .they have to in order to keep cost down to be able to maintain the same profit level. exxon/ mobile had record profits again but the percentage of profit was way off .i had a guy tell me this week that we were making enormous profits. like i told him,we make the same number of pennys but our percentage of profit is in the basement. we still have to buy fuel to keep the trucks going plus all the taxes such as the cat tax , the lust tax, epa permits , etc,etc. when you have problems paying your utility bills insurance and everything else think about the free market !

 

[Nickodell]

And what do you think will be the effect if "you know who" (no politics here!) is elected? One of the main platforms of his campaign is increasing corporate taxes. Now an Economics 101 student knows that corporations don't pay taxes, they simply pass them on to their customers in higher prices. And if the government imposes a socialist-type mandate to prevent them from doing so, do you think they might, just might, be more inclined to shut up shop here and take their company overseas?

 

[TulsaAlpine]

Latest News


I saw on the news this morning that Conoco and Mobil are selling out, anyone here want to buy a franchise and then buy our gas from Shell?
Pipe dream but a filling station that only sells green fuel, E85 and bio-diesel we could have a 60's like motif with the groovy type decor. Wonder if something like that would ever take off? A station for all the tree huggers, hey starbucks makes money!


Donna

 

[MikeH]

Exxon and Mobil are getting out of the retail buisness. Selling off all of the company owned retail outlets.

 

[Nickodell]

My neighbor closed his Getty station last year. He had an average monthly turnover of 120,000 gallons of gas/diesel, but tells me he was netting 8c per gallon after the credit card took their cut (95% of his customers paid by C.C.). Now 120,000 X 8c comes to $9,600, which would, all things being equal, bring him the not insubstantial annual income of $115,000.

However, take away the cost of an assistant (with benefits, of course), insurance, rental and many other costs, and his gasoline/diesel profit was closer to $4,000 a month. He made an additional $2,500 (net) per month on his coffee, snacks, antifreeze/oil etc sales, and it just about paid to keep the business running, but then the local enviromental wackos got the city to impose a fee to cover possible future spillage or leaking underground tanks (which spills and leaks he didn't have), not to mention his own corporate fees and income tax, and he ended up clearing less than $5,000 a month. That was the last straw. $60,000 a year for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week is for the birds.

So, anyone wanting to go into the retail fuel business can buy his station, on the corner of Rt. 23 and Rt. 29 in Phoenixville, PA. Velly cheap, sahib.

 

[skywords]

Just got back from the airport and a chat with a customer who happens to be in the oil biz. He is drilling another hole in the Texas dirt and hopes to strike it rich again. He told me he is fine with $500.00 a barrel oil. And by the way he cries about every nickel spent on his airplane.

It would seem to me there are two kinds of people now. Oil people/ Rich and Non Oil people / poor. (over simplification)

Oil needs to regulated just like electricity so our countries (plural) are not in danger of economic collapse from the greed of these people.

 

[65beam]

independence

guy's ,

there are very few company owned c stores,gas stations , what ever you want to call them. for instance, here in ohio BP sold all company owned stores to independent distributors and have now sold all the BP bulk plants to distributors. the way the system work is that the oil companies sign distributors to a certain number of gallons per year and then you sign supply contracts with stores to supply their fuel.the oil companies don't have all the employees, upkeep ,etc,etc.there are some major company owned stores thru out the country such as flying J,speedway,pilot,etc.but they operate under separate corporations .the deal is a little more complicated than it sounds but the point is that there has to be a lot of gallons moved in order to stay in business and that is why the guy in pa is out of the business.120000 gallons sounds like a lot of gallons but it isn't really a lot. i would estimate that the speedways here in ohio alone move close to 85 million gallons a month and keep in mind that they are owned by marathon which is the third biggest refiner in the U.S. the small man doesn't have the advantage and i must say that grossing 8 cents a gal isn't going to keep a man in business since the majors have maybe 20 cents or more gross at the pumps. it's a crazy business that you would have to be in to understand.

 

[Bill Blue]

bill,
you tell me it's a free market the next time you go to fill up your vehicle. this also opens up another can of worms that even the refiners are fighting .the one guy on tv today had no idea what the inventory numbers this week even meant . they don't care what they do to the economy or to their fellow citizens as long as they make enormous profits for themselves . it's dragging everything down and that means less jobs . look at all the manufacturing going overseas .they have to in order to keep cost down to be able to maintain the same profit level. exxon/ mobile had record profits again but the percentage of profit was way off .i had a guy tell me this week that we were making enormous profits. like i told him,we make the same number of pennys but our percentage of profit is in the basement. we still have to buy fuel to keep the trucks going plus all the taxes such as the cat tax , the lust tax, epa permits , etc,etc. when you have problems paying your utility bills insurance and everything else think about the free market !

Sorry that you missed the sarcasm. I believe in free markets, only if they are well regulated. That hasn't been happening in this country.

Speaking of 110,000 gallons a month, my son works part time at a local fuel outlet. A while back, the driver that delivered a load of gasoline, told of unloading 6,000 gallons of Diesel fuel at a truck stop. As near as he could tell from the tank meters, they sold 2,000 gallons while he was dropping the 6,000!

Nick, I'm afraid that federal regs require the states to collect fees (taxes to you) to cover underground tank leaks. That includes past and future leaks. I would not be surprised if the big guys are getting out of the retail end to limit future environmental hits to the bottom line.

Bill

 

[Nickodell]

Update. My neighbor bought a lunch truck that he parks on the road each day in West Philly, outside Temple University. So long as he moves it away at night the authorities are OK. Apart from his food service license his overheads are just the wholesale cost of the food, cold drinks and coffee, propane, and gas to drive to and from the site. He says coffee is the biggest net - around 2,500% (large cup cost him 9c in grounds and heat, sells for $2.25).

It's early days, but he reckons he'll take home more dough for 36 hours a week than he did with what the station was bringing in during the last year.

Philadelphia has a long tradition of mobile food vendors moving into greater things. Milton Street started with one and ended up a State Senator. His brother John ended up as Mayor.

 

[Jim E]

As Chris Rock said..... if I invade IHOP pancakes are going to be cheaper at my house.....

I say screw it use up the rest of the worlds oil before we use our own and who wants the mess of taking the nasty stuff out of the ground. We have a hard time storing gas cleanly at service stations so what do you think would happen if we were pulling all the oil we use out of the ground here at home.

You want to have a fit about something jump up and down because we do not have a working rail system or that GM bought up all the street car companies across the US closed them down and destroyed the cars so folks would have to buy autos. The US picked to have a freeway system over a rail system now we are eating it. Think about it if we had a real train system in this country our goods would not be on trucks, you could walk down to the corner and jump on a train to work or to grandmas in Florida. We have the know how to get off oil or at least to reduce the amount we need we just do not have the guts to do it. How about we ask Japan how to build a rail system, they know how to make it work. Say we close down the high speed lanes on the interstate system and build rail lines or just move all the traffic to one side and use the other for a rail bed. Might make it so we have a steel industry again not to mention jobs. Maybe GM or Ford could get in the act but I supose if it ever happened Walmart would get the job.

Overall this whole thing maybe worse than we imagine because without oil there is no white bread and milk a mile down the road at the store there are no sidewalks to, no electric which means no AC and it is going to be 100 today, no water because the pumps stop working. Kaos is a meal away and all we can think of is how we keep getting our cheap oil fix not how to get off it. Cheap oil is not the answer it is the problem.

 

[Bill Blue]

As Chris Rock said..... if I invade IHOP pancakes are going to be cheaper at my house.....

I say screw it use up the rest of the worlds oil before we use our own and who wants the mess of taking the nasty stuff out of the ground. We have a hard time storing gas cleanly at service stations so what do you think would happen if we were pulling all the oil we use out of the ground here at home.

You want to have a fit about something jump up and down because we do not have a working rail system or that GM bought up all the street car companies across the US closed them down and destroyed the cars so folks would have to buy autos. The US picked to have a freeway system over a rail system now we are eating it. Think about it if we had a real train system in this country our goods would not be on trucks, you could walk down to the corner and jump on a train to work or to grandmas in Florida. We have the know how to get off oil or at least to reduce the amount we need we just do not have the guts to do it. How about we ask Japan how to build a rail system, they know how to make it work. Say we close down the high speed lanes on the interstate system and build rail lines or just move all the traffic to one side and use the other for a rail bed. Might make it so we have a steel industry again not to mention jobs. Maybe GM or Ford could get in the act but I supose if it ever happened Walmart would get the job.

Overall this whole thing maybe worse than we imagine because without oil there is no white bread and milk a mile down the road at the store there are no sidewalks to, no electric which means no AC and it is going to be 100 today, no water because the pumps stop working. Kaos is a meal away and all we can think of is how we keep getting our cheap oil fix not how to get off it. Cheap oil is not the answer it is the problem.

Dang it all Jim, there you go again, sounding like one of them crazy Liberals.
Next thing, you will be saying we need to raise taxes to pay for the war we buying on credit.

Bill

 

[Jim E]

Bill is that a left handed way of saying you agree with me.... you have the crazy part right and I am a liberal, which by the way is not a dirty word, is it????. or maybe it is but I just do not care if folks like it or not. Perhaps if we spend just half the money were are pissing away on blowing crap up on a rail system we would not be pukering up or lower region right now.