Reply With QuoteI'm Confused? Are You A Republican Or Democrat? Just Curious...
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OIL, AND PLENTY OF IT!
I'm only passing this along. If you don't believe it, then try checking it out.
Ever heard of the Bakken Formation?
Most of the drilling on the Montana side has been done in Richland County - Sidney - and things have really "boomed" around there. It also runs into Roosevelt County to the north. Richland is one of the counties I am the area manager for, so I work with the staff to make sure we are doing our job of fair & equitable taxation of the oil rigs as well as the sites after all
the drilling has been done. The oil companies are really good about reporting, so that helps. But they haven't even really tapped the surface for what is there nor used technology to do the horizontal drilling that other parts of eastern Montana have been doing (Pine Unit south of Glendive extending to Baker).
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This is interesting reading, and just poking around the Internet recently, I simply 'Googled' the search 'Untapped U.S. Oil Reserves,' and the result (like the current price of a gallon of gas) BLEW ME AWAY! Go ahead, take a minute and see for yourself! Never mind, I'll share some of the highlights I found:
1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it. I did, and again, it BLEW my mind. 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 2/3s 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 (EI A) 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.” It stretches from Northern Montana , through North Dakota, and into Canada. For years U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the “Big Oil” companies gave up searching for major oil deposits decades ago. However,
a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves, and we now have access to 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!
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. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005, President Bush mandated its extraction.
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 as 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 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!
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I'm Confused? Are You A Republican Or Democrat? Just Curious...
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An Alien, and not from a foreign country either, much further out then that.Originally Posted by RICHYD4U
Senior Member
It is my understanding that there has been no new oil exploration in the last 30-40 years because of the high price of building new refineries. There was a lot of discussion about it after hurricane Katrina damaged/destroyed old refineries on and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. "Big Oil" knew about large, untapped oil reserves but were pushing for government funding to repair damaged refineries and build new ones. When they didn't get it they just sat down on their hands and did nothing.
My daughter is a Consultant for a major pipeline and she told me work has accellerated so fast that they haven't been able to find enough workers. She is presently in the area of the South Gulf Coast.
Given what she has told me, I agree with PL and don't think for a minute that he is an alien. There is just so much information about oil reserves and exploration, in the United States, that has been withheld from the general public because of screaming environmentalists.
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Yeah I agree that we only know what the government will tell us. I knew that in the Military and it's not much different now.
The enviromentalists have become fear mongers and look where we are now because of that. These special intrest groups have bought their way into our lives! The bottom line is that the politicians are to blame.
I feel that way about Global Warming as well. To much info on both sides of that discussion to come up with a well educated decision. WE get told what each side wants us to know even if it's a stretch in truth. I feel the Liberals have figured out that they can benefit/profit from jumping on board, several Conservatives have done so as well. If we don't stop all this worrying about every little animal and every little weather event and every little country and everyones feelings here and around the world then we will be our own undoing. There is nothing wrong with taking care of ourselves first or at least more than we are.
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Hey Guys:
Think of it this way. Who's benefiting more by high oil price. The Oil Companies or the Environmentalists.
BTW who are the Environmentalist anyway?
Can you tell me the difference between an environmentalist and a conservationist like Isaak Walton.
Just because there are a few wackos on each side of an argument does not mean that all are nuts.
There are those that are on the right that go to the extreme and there are those on the left that go to the extreme too.
But at $140/barrel the oil companies are making money. You sure don't deny that now do you? Oil sold for only $20/barrel just 10 to 15 years ago.
140/20 x 100 = 700% increase in the price of oil in ten years.
I would love to see my salary increase 700% too. Most folks are lucky if they get a 3% raise every 3 years.
I do know this. If it cost millions to build a new refinery and if they were to b build several of these new refineries the oil company would see their profits decrease. Why? Well they have to output more money to build these new refineries. That's a capital cost that they have to pay for.
And if we were to increase the supply of gasoline available in the US Marketplace it would lower the demand/supply ratio. That will lower the price of gasoline. Now that may be great for the general public and the economy as a whole but it would cost the oil companies more money out of their pockets.
If you were a stock holder in a oil company and you could make MORE PROFIT by not building a new refinery than if you built a new refinery would you vote to make more profit or not?
And if you could get by with charging more for your product and spending less to make your product would you do that? Sure you would!
And the best thing of all is that the oil companies can blame it on the Environmentalist and the Congress for not letting them drill for more oil. In reality they are making more money and don't have to drill for more oil. Drilling and producing more oil would be like OPEC opening the spigots and increasing the supply of oil. When you have a big supply the price goes down. Why would OPEC want to reduce the price of oil that they are selling to the world? They won't increase the oil output and lower the price of oil UNTIL their market is threatened. Alternative energy sources could threaten their oil product. So any time the US starts thinking SERIOUSLY about developing alternatives to oil you will see OPEC opening the spigots to put a stop to new alternatives. By lowing the price of their oil they keep us tied to their oil ****.
Remember that supply/demand/price are controlled by Monopolies and the regular supply and demand market does not work as it should.
Monopolies work to maintain the highest prices for their products by limiting the supply of the product.
Diamonds were controlled by De Beers which was the worlds only source of diamonds for many years. De Beers made sure that the supply of diamonds was kept low to ensure that Diamonds remained very expensive.
Diamonds like Oil is a limited commodity and are both controlled by Monopolies.
De Beers controlled the diamond mines in South Africa where almost all the worlds diamonds were found. Today there are other diamond mines in North American and there are ways to make Industrial Diamonds so the De Beer's monopoly is not as effective as it was years ago.
When we develop solar, wind and geothermal and hydroelectric power in the USA we can tell OPEC to kiss our a$$.
I look forward to the day when the USA gets off fossil fuels and onto renewable fuels like Solar and Wind to supply our energy needs.
Solar and Wind are Free. You don't have to have anyone digging up the earth to get the coal and then you don't burn the coal to produce greenhouse gases.
When the Ice melts off the land in Antarctica and the Oceans start to rise rapidly Washington DC and New York city will be flooded. Then will you finally figure out that Global Warming is real? Most of the people live within 20 miles of a coast line. Those are the folks that will be most impacted by rising sea levels.
Normally the earth's orbit around the sun was the reason for ice ages and warming periods. But the earth's orbit around the sun took 10.000 year to change orbit path. We were not around in huge numbers the last time we had a ice age. We were just starting to colonize the earth 10.000 years ago. The Earth has been slowing warming up as the earth orbit around the sun got closer and closer to the sun. The earth's orbit is not perfectly circular.
If you watch the history channel or the discovery channel you will see many programs that are trying to tell us what our future will be like if we don't stop the global warming.
The CO2 content in the earth's atmosphere is directly effecting the earth's temperatures. For the last 400,000 years is recorded in the Glacial Ice Sheets. The amount of CO2 frozen into the ice over the last 400,000 years can be measured in each layer of the ice. Lower layers were deposited before the upper layers. Therefore the ice at the bottom is older and the ice at the top is recent. Ice cores can be taken out of the glacier and the amount of CO2 in each different layers of the ice can be measured. If you plot the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over time you will see that it correlates with the temperatures. We can tell how warm the earth was in the past by looking at the fossils in the earth's crust. Fossils that are found in the lower layers are older. Fossils found in the upper layers are younger. We can look at the various types of fossils and know which one's lived in warmer climates and which one's lived in colder climates. Therefore we can determine the temperatures of the earth in times past by looking at the different types of fossils. We can see where the oceans once were in the past.
Senior Member
Moose,
It's easy to see when a group has over stepped their common sense boundries and jumped feet first into extreme actions. We have all seen these groups freak out over things like snails, fish, whales, trees, Caribou, owls to name a few. I'll throw PETA in as an extremists group (just for good measure)that has just flat out gone over the top in their own bubble they live in.
You know what hurts the Global Warming argument? Nut jobs who attach everything under the Sun to it. For example, I heard yesterday that Kidney Stones could be a result of Global Warming? See it never ends....
Don't forget who else profits from this oil problem, the U.S. Government.
Andrew,
Thanks for the link. I read it and my little voice kept telling me that something stinks about that article. Maybe I'm not able to process that info properly but I'm wondering why this isn't major news? The Dems would score a home run with this info if it was credible. Don't you think? I do wonder what we sell crude for compared to what we buy it for? The article had no mention of that dollar amount.
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Well Moose 1 I am going to shoot holes in your theory. I live in Robinson IL and we have a refinery here in town. I can assure you they rebuild this refinery every six years by doing what is referred to as a turn around. They average two a year and bring in from 400 to 2000 construction workers. They tear down a unit and rebuild it. Cost between 80, to 240 million x 2 they hope each time they rebuild a unit they can get .5 % efficiency gain that is ½ of a percent.
This refinery looses money when oil is this high because they have to buy the oil and refinery is a stand alone division. Also there company does not have near the production to supply all the needs of their refineries so they import oil from all over the world bring it to New Orleans and pipe it to Robinson IL.
They would be money ahead to build a new refinery with all the new technology and would see several percentage gains in efficiencies. However permitting will take about twenty to thirty years that is why they are expanding all their refineries instead of building new. Also about ten years ago refineries were only running at about 75 % capacities but because of environmental laws this refinery has to produce and store seven different grades of reformulated gasoline for different cities. If they could make just 87 and 89 octane gasoline we would have plenty of capacity.
No I do not work in the oil patch but I have a very keen awareness of what goes on in this refinery and how much of a capital hog this is.
Senior Member
DJD if you go to that page and read the Kipplinger business letter about US oil reserves it explains in detail that we are just now getting the technology to recover this oil. (The U.S.' Untapped Oil Bounty
There's enough oil to power the nation for three centuries without OPEC's help -- IF we're willing to go after it.
By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter)
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Thanks!
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I also worked at the refinery located in Robinson, IL. I worked with Young Insulation which did a lot of the work at that refinery. Without the insulation on the pipes that refinery would not have been able to continue to operate.
And I know a thing or two about getting permits to construct new factories like refineries. You might find a name on a few of those permits that looks familiar to me.
Believe me if Marathon wanted to build a new refinery they would be allowed to build it in a heart beat.
Your statement about taking 20 years to get the permits is hogwash. Not sure who gave you that talking point but they don't have a clue as to what they are talking about.
Obtaining a construction permit takes less than a year and they are easily obtained when the plant is designed to meet the Clean Air Act Requirements.
Just recently a permit was issued to the refinery in Mt Vernon, IN to increase that refineries capacity. They had zero problems getting their construction and operating permits from IDEM APCD.
You probably don't even know what APCD stand for do you?
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I know some of you have mentioned alternative power. I saw on Fox News today that some environmental groups are trying to fight wind power. They are saying it takes away from the beauty of the land.
It feels like we just can't win. Ryan.
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