Quote:
Originally Posted by RAIDER56
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As long as congress continues to block drilling and new refineries fuel prices will go up.
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In 1982, soon after Reagan was elected, the number of refineries in the US was 301.
In the next decade, 120 refineries were shutdown and dismantled; that's one refinery dismantled per month for Reagan and Bush.
During the Clinton administration, the number closed dropped to less than three a year.
During Dubya's administration, one refinery per year has been dismantled, and today there are only 149 refineries.
Why would Congress need to block building refineries when the oil industry is dismantling them because they are not competitive and are losing money?
As far blocking drilling, explain why Exxon hasn't developed the Thomson Point field that is right outside ANWR? They have had that lease for three decades, filed and then abandoned more than 25 development plans. When Alaska revoked the lease, Exxon is suing to get it back, promising that it will actually implement their 27th development plan, bringing the field into production by 2014.
I'm sure that the Exxon management sees the Thomson Point lease, and I'm sure others as well, as being worth more if the are listed as assets for the stockholders, and not developed so that Exxon keeps showing that it has oil reserves for the future.
Besides, why develop oil in Alaska where Exxon would be forced to pay the State a big share of the huge profits they would get, when they can extract from Louisiana which is prohibited by Federal law from taxing the oil produced there.
The Bush family in the story of oil is telling. Bush the elder went to the House of Saud begging for them to pump more oil to drive down the price during the 80s. In the 90s, Bush the elder went to the House of Saud begging for them to cut back production to drive up the price of oil because US oil producers were losing money big time. Then this year, Bush the dumber went to the House of Saud begging for them to pump more oil to drive down the price of oil.
But again, the capitalists were so smart in the 90s when they laid off all the oil engineers, all the oil technicians, sold off all the oil rigs, and basically shutdown most drilling in the US and really cut deep into drilling capacity. Drilling is required even for already developed fields to maximize production over the long term, but that is costly, and in the 90s the oil companies stopped reworking the fields in order to increase profits. This century, the people and equipment is in short supply, so reworking the existing fields and expanding them is slowed as new people are trained and equipment acquired. But hey, capitalists know that people are all interchangable and just a commodity; if the Bush immigration train hadn't been derailed, the capitalists would just bring Chinese coolie oil engineers who would work harder and cheaper. Bush betrayed by Pat Buchanon.
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