BP , Conoco Phillips, and the Brazilian company Petroleo Brasilero SA,ignoring the nay sayers ,drilled a little deeper(35,055 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico ,at a place called Tiber Prospect (250 miles southeast of Houston) ,and guess what they found ? Yes ,the Gulf has not been sucked dry Their find will yield 3 billion bb of oil .

This is BP's 2nd big find in the Gulf this decade . That find 270 miles off New Orleans has produced 15 billion bb .

A couple of years ago Brazil did some deep drilling off their coast and discovered the Tupi field and Carioca field which combined may yield over 40 billion bb of oil . These are the fields I posted about elsewhere when discussing the U.S. Export-Import Bank giving a $10 billion loan to Brazil's Petrobras to develop its fields.

But the point is that significant oil is being discovered off shore the United States and Congress still places bans and restrictions on US company exploration and development of these assets.

What I don't get is that new oil fields are being discovered on our doorstep,and these fields are being exploited by foreign companies and nations. Cuba and Russia inked a deal in July to drill 45 to 90 miles off the coast of Florida.Cubapetroleo will team with Zarubezhneft to begin this deep water exploration. They believe that their exploration will yield 20 billion bb of oil . Other nations like Venezuela and Brazil have leased rights with Cuba to explore and drill there since 1999 .Last year China National Petroleum Corp. also signed a deal with Cubapetroleo to jointly develop oil and gas fields.

Which country is missing from this new oil rush off the coast of the United States you may ask? That's right ;The United States of America. Great job Congress!! You'll solve our energy problems with corkscrew shaped light bulbs while the rest of the world does jobs Americans would do if they were just permitted to do so.

So... let me get this straight.

Oil... which is a non-renewable source of energy... keeps getting renewed by newly discovered oil deposits.

But we're not allowed to partake because... there's not enough oil?

Elliot

But we're not allowed to partake because... there's not enough oil?Hello El:

If you don't know the reason why we aren't allowed to partake you shouldn't be offering your opinion. It makes you look kind of uninformed...

excon

Hello El:

If you don't know the reason why we aren't allowed to partake you shouldn't be offering your opinion. It makes you look kinda uninformed....

excon

The only reason that I can see is based on a false assumption... that we are running out of oil.

But we're NOT running out of oil. We keep finding more of the stuff.

Ergo, the assumption is wrong.

Which means that the only reason we can't partake is... politics.

Elliot

Hello again, El:

So you DON'T know why we won't let the oil companies drill off our coasts.. I figured.

excon

Peak oil and the threat of spillage and phony environmentalism is the reason we don't drill.

Peak oil is like global warming . People keep prediciting it and just doesn't happen. Even shallow wells left alone refill through percolation.

Off the California shore in the Santa Barbara channel they've found that if the oil isn't extracted that it percolates into the water and becomes effectively a spill or "Natural Seepage" at a rate of 20-25 tons a day.
But we can't drill there for fear of oil spills!! Absurd.

But where is the logic of those restrictions if everyone else is permitted to do so ?

You got to love those environmentalists that keep sticking it the average Joe while usually being completely wrong and intentionally deceptive. And if that's not enough there's the old fallback of "we can't drill our way out of the energy crisis" anyway so why drill?

That's kind of like rational for Obamacare's "death panel" (yes I said it), grandpa doesn't have enough "instrumental value" so why give him that pacemaker?

Another example of environmentalists not getting the consequences of their actions though is the current California wild fires (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gNirrGO3UeJug3__BuGV2m6TzUIQD9AFHJG00).


Federal authorities failed to follow through on plans earlier this year to burn away highly flammable brush in a forest on the edge of Los Angeles to avoid the very kind of wildfire now raging there... Months before the huge blaze erupted, the U.S. Forest Service obtained permits to burn away the undergrowth and brush on more than 1,700 acres of the Angeles National Forest. But just 193 acres had been cleared by the time the fire broke out, Forest Service resource officer Steve Bear said.

The agency defended its efforts, saying weather, wind and environmental rules tightly limit how often these "prescribed burns" can be conducted... Some critics suggested that protests from environmentalists over prescribed burns contributed to the disaster, which came after the brush was allowed to build up for as much as 40 years. "This brush was ready to explode," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich... "The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today."...

The blaze has destroyed more than five dozen homes, killed two firefighters and forced thousands of people to flee... Biologist Ileene Anderson with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental organization, said burn permits should be difficult to get because of the potential damage to air quality. Clearing chaparral by hand or machine must be closely scrutinized because it can hurt native species.

Only 193 of 1700 acres of brush built up over 40 years cleared. A couple people dead, homes destroyed, lives ruined... and how are those native species faring now?

Sorry for the digressions, tom, back to the OP... drill, drill, drill!

Peak oil and the threat of spillage and phony environmentalism is the reason we don't drill... But where is the logic of those restrictions if everyone else is permitted to do so ? Hello tom:

You say phony environmentalism as if we've never experienced a spill. But, we DID, didn't we?? What was phony about that one?? Sorry that I'm here to remind you... Bummer about me...

Permitted to do so?? WE don't permit them. WE have nothing to DO with it, though, because they're drilling in international waters... Do we prevent OUR oil companies from drilling in international waters?? I don't think we do. I don't think we even could if we wanted to.

excon

Hello again, El:

So you DON'T know why we won't let the oil companies drill off our coasts.. I figured.

excon

I already told you the reason we don't drill.

Politics.

There is no threat of "peak oil". Global warming is a farce.

So the only reason left is politics.

I know you don't like hearing it, but that's the truth.

Elliot

Hello tom:

You say phony environmentalism as if we've never experienced a spill. But, we DID, didn't we?? What was phony about that one??

What was PHONEY was the amount of damage the environmentalists claim occurred from that spill. The reason you are so worried about oil spills is because of outrageous and false claims of the damage that never occurred.


Sorry that I'm here to remind you... Bummer about me...

Permitted to do so?? WE don't permit them. WE have nothing to DO with it, though, because they're drilling in international waters... Do we prevent OUR oil companies from drilling in international waters?? I don't think we do. I don't think we even could if we wanted to.

Excon

Actually... uh, yes we do. All the time. We do it by preventing the creation of new refineries, creating a bottleneck in the processing of oil that limits the amount we can drill. So yes, our government DOES control when, where and how much we can drill via indirect means. (Not to mention the direct controls that the government has over the energy industry via taxation and regulation.)

Elliot

Do we prevent OUR oil companies from drilling in international waters?? I don't think we do. I don't think we even could if we wanted to.


And yet a ban on drilling on the OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF still exists and there is still a ban from drilling off Fla that extends past the place where the Cubans,Chinese ,Russians ,Norway, Spain, India,and Brazil have signed exploration agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas .These agreements could mean drilling south of Key West and east of the Keys in the Cay Sal area of the Bahamas could beging in fewer than two years.