Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
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 that oil producers already have the means to increase domestic oil and gas production even without ANWR or lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling in environmentally sensitive areas:
On the Outer Continental Shelf, 82 percent of federal natural gas and 79 percent of federal oil is located in areas currently open for leasing. Onshore, 62 percent of oil and 84 percent of natural gas resources are either fully accessible under standard lease stipulations designed to protect lands and wildlife, or will be accessible pending the completion of land-use planning or environmental reviews. Between 1999 and 2007, drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands increased more than 361 percent. Since 2004, the Bureau of Land Management has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land; in that same time, only 18,954 wells were drilled. Oil and gas companies have stockpiled nearly 10,000 extra permits to drill that they are not using to increase domestic production.
Onshore, of the 47.5 million acres of federal lands leased by oil and gas companies, only about 13 million acres are producing oil and gas. Offshore, only 10.5 million of the 44 million leased acres are producing oil or gas. Combined, oil and gas companies hold leases to nearly 68 million acres of federal land that are not producing oil and gas. The 68 million acres of leased, inactive federal land could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. That would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75 percent.
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[T]here are nearly 91 million acres currently open to leasing in the Arctic region of Alaska, including onshore and offshore lands. Oil and gas companies have leased only 11.8 million of that acreage. Within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, oil companies have leased 3 million of 22.6 million acres available to lease. No production has occurred on any of those lands and industry has drilled only 25 exploratory wells there since 2000.
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Development of and production from the 68 million acres currently under lease but not in production would cut U.S. imports of oil by one third. Add to this mix the thousands of existing wells in states such as Texas and Oklahoma that were capped off after imported oil dropped to $10 a barrel and could be reopened to immediately increase production.
But wait, it gets worse. Not only are the oil companies not exploring and producing oil on federal lands for which they already possess permits, but it turns out that the domestic oil that the oil companies are producing is being shipped to foreign countries in record amounts this year instead of being made available on the U.S. market. ANALYSIS-US oil firms seek drilling access, but exports soar | Reuters
While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.
The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
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{E]nergy experts say oil and petroleum products are traded globally, and it may make economic sense to export gasoline refined along the U.S. Gulf Coast to Latin America and import European-refined gasoline to U.S. East Coast markets.
"The fact is that the (United States) participates in global markets for both crude and refined products, and there are any number of variables that impact supply and prices in those markets," said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association.
The White House said it was against requiring U.S. oil products to stay at home.
"Forbidding exports of U.S. petroleum reduces the incentive for domestic suppliers to produce, and could potentially lead to higher prices if U.S. production or refining declined," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
The 1.6 million barrels a day in record petroleum exports represented 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.
However, with refiners operating at 85 percent of capacity during the January-April period, the shipments represented a much a larger share of total U.S. oil products produced.
The exports were also equal to half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.
The biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil.
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While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.
U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.
Residual fuel exports in April were 377,000 barrels per day, the fourth highest level for any month, and up 10 percent from 344,000 barrels per day a year earlier.
There you have it. The fact is that the United States participates in a global market for both crude and refined products; there is not a purely "domestic" market. Oil produced in the U.S. is not guaranteed to be sold on the U.S. market. So if we open up all of U.S. offshore oil reserves to the oil companies, Americans have the right to demand to know who will benefit? Apparently not U.S.
So be sure to ask John McCain and the Republican charlatans perpetrating this fraud upon the American people with their "drill here! drill now!" campaign about these facts. Do not let them get away with their lies in service to their oil company masters.
Here’s a handy-dandy video to help you out.
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