Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Advertisement In an earlier post, Blog For Arizona: The Truth About America’s Energy – Part 1, I reported that: The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources has issued a report entitled "The Truth About America’s Energy." Facts and figures provided by the Energy Information Administration and the Department of Interior clearly illustrate … Read more

by David Safier (TASL) I have a love-hate relationship with Ben Stein. On the one hand, I love him in Farris Bueller’s Day Off and Win Ben Stein’s Money. On the other hand, I hate his basic conservative ideology and his “Let’s create an Intelligent Design Department at Harvard” stance. (OK, I exaggerated a bit … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In an earlier post, I explained how the obstructionist Republicans have blocked energy legislation in Congress that would have actually lowered the price of gas at the pump, and marginally increased domestic oil and gas supplies. Blog For Arizona: All gimmicks, all the time – the offshore drilling fraud

For the sake of argument, let’s assume the obstructionist Republicans currently throwing a temper tantrum actually get their way.  How much offshore oil are we actually talking about? 

"About 86 billion barrels of additional oil may lie offshore, according to the US government’s Energy Information Administration," and then continued: "Of that amount, about 18 billion barrels are subject to the moratorium." Blog For Arizona: All gimmicks, all the time – the offshore drilling fraud  That’s it.  A drop in the barrel, so to speak, in the world supply of oil on the global market.

Moreover, even if the offshore moratorium were lifted today, the oil companies simply do not have the oil drilling ships and offshore rigs to drill for the oil, or skilled employees to man them (despite what the howling mad attack dogs of talk radio and the McMedia misrepresent to the public daily).

The global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck.  The world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.  Dearth of Deep-Sea Drilling Ships Hinders Offshore Oil Search – NYTimes.com

“The crunch on rigs is everywhere,” said Alberto Guimaraes, a senior executive at Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that has discovered some of the most promising offshore oil but has been unable to get at it.

“Almost 100 percent of the oil companies are constrained in their investment program because there is no rig available,” he said.

As a result, drilling costs for some of the newest deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico — the nation’s top source of domestic oil and natural gas supplies — have reached about $600,000 a day, compared with $150,000 a day in 2002.

The most recent report (8/8/08) from ODS-Petrodata, a firm that tracks drilling rigs, ODS-Petrodata | Weekly Rig Count states that "In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the number of rigs under contract slipped by two after two jackup contracts ended, while total fleet size was unchanged.  With 103 of 123 mobile offshore drilling rigs under contract this week, fleet utilization in the region stands at 83.7 percent."  With 630 out of 694 rigs available under contract (worldwide), offshore rig fleet utilization is 90.8 percent."  This is maximum utilization; there is little spare capacity.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: On Friday, the McCain campaign announced that it would be returning $50,000 in campaign contributions raised by Mustafa Abu Naba’a, a Jordanian citizen, from members of a single extended family in California, the Abdullahs, along with several of their friends. The Raw Story | McCain campaign to return 50K in donations ; … Read more