Hello:

The price of oil, is a WORLD price.. Therefore, unless we produce as much as the Middle East, we can't affect the price.

So, how is drilling here going to help?

excon

We have reserves greater than the Middle East and we are finding more reserves every day.

The answer to your question is that this is as much about energy security as it is about price. As you know there are many factors that affect price including production and output supply ,the currency value ,and messianic nutjobs threatening to cut off the supply.
The more sources there are the more secure the supply .

It might be a world price ex but it varies greatly. In the US it is $101 a barrel but Tapis in Indonesia is $119. I cannot see that the US price has any effect on Tapis. The Nigerians are going crazy having to pay $0.80 a litre for fuel without realising that they produce oil and import fuel. The main price indicators are
West Texas Intermediate (WTI – USA)
Brent (Europe, Africa and Asia)
Dubai and Oman (Middle East)
Dubai, Tapis and Dated Brent (in Asia-Pacific)
I just wonder which oil company BO is working for, the harder he pushes the Iranians the higher the price goes
It's a crazy world

And now a word from our neighbors to the north

An open letter from the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, on Canada's commitment to diversify our energy markets and the need to further streamline the regulatory process in order to advance Canada's national economic interest.

Canada is on the edge of a historic choice: to diversify our energy markets away from our traditional trading partner in the United States or to continue with the status quo.Virtually all our energy exports go to the United States. As a country, we must seek new markets for our products and services and the booming Asia-Pacific economies have shown great interest in our oil, gas, metals and minerals. For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast-growing Asian economies. We know that increasing trade will help ensure the financial security of Canadians and their families.
Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project, no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydroelectric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special-interest groups to undermine Canada's national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources. Finally, if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: Sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work. It works because it helps them to achieve their ultimate objective: delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.Anyone looking at the record of approvals for certain major projects across Canada cannot help but come to the conclusion that many of these projects have been delayed too long. In many cases, these projects would create thousands upon thousands of jobs for Canadians, yet they can take years to get started due to the slow, complex and cumbersome regulatory process.

For example, the Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline review took more than nine years to complete. In comparison, the western expansion of the nation-building Canadian Pacific Railway under Sir John A. Macdonald took four years. Under our current system, building a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff required the approval of the federal government. This delayed a decision by two months. Two valuable months to assess something that thousands of Canadians have been doing for over a century.

Our regulatory system must be fair, independent, consider different viewpoints including those of aboriginal communities, review the evidence dispassionately and then make an objective determination. It must be based on science and the facts. We believe reviews for major projects can be accomplished in a quicker and more streamlined fashion. We do not want projects that are safe, generate thousands of new jobs and open up new export markets, to die in the approval phase due to unnecessary delays.

Unfortunately, the system seems to have lost sight of this balance over the past years. It is broken. It is time to take a look at it. It is an urgent matter of Canada's national interest.

Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources


Open letter: Radicals threaten resource development | FP Comment | Financial Post (http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/01/09/open-letter-radicals-threaten-resource-development/)
You think that Obama's decision about the Keystone pipeline may have had something to do with this ?


Through most of 2011, Canadian energy officials in politics and industry watched with bewildered helplessness and some shock as Washington allowed environmentalists to seize control of TransCanada's $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline issue. They stood by aghast as President Barack Obama, a captive of U.S. green activists and Hollywood movie stars, caved in to political pressure and postponed a decision to approve the project, a potential economic bonanza that promised to deliver thousands of jobs to Americans and billions of barrels of Canadian oil sands production to Texas.

Terence Corcoran: A war on green 'radicals' | FP Comment | Financial Post (http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/01/09/terence-corcoran-a-war-on-green-radicals/)

Tom once again it is clear that the US is a protectionist regime. It wasn't long ago that a scheme to land Australian gas in California was squashed so why would the Canadians expect better treatment. It doesn't pay to be a close ally of the US

Yeah we have way too many protectionist in our government. But this is particularly self defeating .Not only does it screw a close ally ;but thousands of US jobs are lost too. Not only would the proposed pipeline carry heavy crude for diesel from Canada ;but it would also carry domestic oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota .

I wonder what would happen if we turned protectionist, No subsidies for US car companies, less imported content on television, no imported food, ah, the mind boggles, our economy might actually flourish. Wait a moment, it already does because we won't allow the worst aspects of capitalism to flourish. I expect there is a lesson there somewhere

I've dealt with your TGA . Don't tell me you isn't protectionist.

Now how so Tom we have very few tarriffs and have restructured many industries which have mainly moved offshore. What you yanks don't like is we have a regulated market for pharmeuticals not to restrict supply but to stop rip off pricing by drug companies. Laisse Faire might be alive and well medicated in the US but here it is kept on life support. We did not appreciate your attempts to dismantle our Pharmeutical Benefits Scheme as part of your FTA negotiations.

Nope ;your system is rigged heavily in favor of domestic producers... you just call it consumer protection.

Yes Tom we require that the drugs sold here be fit for human consumption
FDA Official: Another Tainted Drug Is Inevitable // Pharmalot (http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/03/fda-official-another-tainted-drug-is-inevitable/)
Your own FDA admits the problem is out of control and yet you critise us for protecting ourselves.

By all means if your sources are from China then do what's necessary . I'm talking about finished products not raw materials . If your domestic producers are subject to the same inspections as we get from your TGA than fine ;that's your choice. I guess you don't care about costs because it's all 'free' to the consumer.

I guess you don't care about costs because it's all 'free' to the consumer.

Not correct Tom our TGA is very cost conscious but the pressure is on the drug companies; their quality is under scrutiny and their margins controlled. We are aware that the medical profession and their fellow travellers must be closely watched. You need to modify your view, it is not free but subsidised or if you like price controlled. The consumer pays a regulated fee for each perscription and a doctor's perscription is needed for all controlled substances. If a drug is not on the PBS list then it can be very expensive. Consumers don't take to drugs which cost $100 a perscription very easily.

it is not free but subsidised... their margins controlled..
As I said... protectionism... they aren't competitive unless imports are tightly controlled . You think your consumers are getting a savings ,but they pay for it in other ways like taxes .

We don't have the aversion to tax that you do, Tom, because of the way things are structured we get much greater value for money, such as subsidised medicine.

you work on the basis you pay minimum tax and you get minimum service and you think this is a virtue. If you spent less on aircraft carriers and more on looking after the poor you may see things differently

Well done Mr President!! The Canadian oil will still be extracted ;it will still be exported and sold .A pipeline will still be built.

But now ,instead of dealing with the United States ,the Canadians will sell it to willing customers in Asia... and there won't be any American jobs from the project .

Obama?s Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Look to China Sales - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-19/canada-pledges-to-sell-oil-to-asia-after-obama-rejects-keystone-pipeline.html)

Oh... and that huge US investment in Brazil deep water drilling... How's that working out for you ?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/19/china-gets-jump-on-us-for-brazils-oil/

Who are you talking to because BO can't hear you.

Why shouldn't Canada sell oil to China, if BO succeeds in cutting off the Iranian oil supply he had better give the Chinese an alternative otherwise he hasn't learned the lesson of Pearl Harbor.

The world is too connected for any nation to stuff about with oil supples and if you don't want it someone does.

Hello again,

I've kind of bowed out, because I really don't know enough about it. I admit, I'm at the mercy of the press I read - AND what I read here..

A couple things confuse me... I was surprised when I heard tom say that we have as much oil as the Saudi's do. Plus, it was MY understanding, that the oil that WOULD have flowed through the Keystone pipeline was bound for China in the first place.. The jobs it WOULD have created would only have been temporary. We DON'T have UNDERUTILIZED refinery capacity anywhere. So, we COULDN'T use that oil anyway..

Tell me where I'm wrong.

excon

Hello again,

I've kinda bowed out, because I really don't know enough about it. I admit, I'm at the mercy of the press I read - AND what I read here..

A couple things confuse me... I was surprised when I heard tom say that we have as much oil as the Saudi's do. Plus, it was MY understanding, that the oil that WOULD have flowed through the Keystone pipeline was bound for China in the first place.. The jobs it WOULD have created would only have been temporary. We DON'T have UNDERUTILIZED refinery capacity anywhere. So, we COULDN'T use that oil anyway..

Tell me where I'm wrong.

excon

I'm no expert either Ex but I understand that oil is the heavier variety they turn into diesel and lubricating products, etc. There are already pipelines bringing oil from Canada to refineries. So this is more pipeline capacity. On one side it is about distribution and on the other about environmental issues including that the oil from Canada is particularly dirty. I think there were also fields in your own country that were depending on that pipeline so perhaps that's where the jobs came from.

Oils from various fields are of different qualities. My own country is an oil producer but it is light and they use it for aviation fuel so we have to import oil for other purposes. It's complex business you don't just drill, slap up a refinery, and you have met all your needs.

Turns out that the Canadian oil and the Bakken oil will still make it to refineries in the US . It won't be piped in... Instead it will travel by rail...

On Burlington Northern , a Rail line owned by Obama toady Warren Buffett.
Hmmmm.

Shipping oil using tank cars on rail costs about $3 more a barrel than pipeline transport costs , but what's that when you are greasing a crony ? Nothing !
And the claim is that it's environmentally safer . Yeah we never have trains derail..

Oh by the way ;as a side note...

Debbie Bosanek the personal secretary to Buffet ,who pays more in taxes than he... She will be a guest tonight at the SOTU address .She will sit in the 1st Lady's box.

Great trivia tom should we draw any conclusions?