Obama unchained oil and gas exploration in the U.S.?


Anyone who votes Democrat regularly gets the “told you so” e-mails from Republicans making claims about how bad things are under President Obama.

One favorite, hoax meme is the claim that Obama hurt energy exploration in the U.S.  One friend e-mails me at least once a month with a claim that Obama has done something to frustrate drilling for oil in the U.S., usually accompanied with a political pitch that all we need to do is drill the hell out of Alaska, kill the caribou, and allow pollution of the Gulf of Mexico, and we’ll be independent of Middle Eastern oil forever.

Here’s the ugly secret they don’t want to tell you — heck, they probably don’t know:  Total oil rig count is way up under Obama from when he took office, increasing at a rate about double that of the previous Bush administration.

Under President Obama, oil and gas exploration in the U.S. is greatly increased.

Here’s the most recent rig count report from WTRG Economics, highlighting added:

North American Rotary Rig Counts

The U.S. rotary rig count was down 15 rigs at 2,001 for the week of November 18, 2011. It is 324 rigs (19.6%) higher than last year. 

The number of rotary rigs drilling for oil decreased 8 to 1,125. There are 394 more rigs targeting oil than last year. Rigs drilling for oil represent 56.2% percent of all drilling activity. 

Rigs directed toward natural gas were down 6 at 871. The number of rigs currently drilling for gas is 65 lower than last year’s level of 936.

Year-over-year oil exploration in the U.S. is up 53.9 percent. Gas exploration is down 6.9 percent. The weekly average of crude oil spot prices is 20.8 percent higher than last year and natural gas spot prices are 16.8 percent lower.

Tuesday a week ago I joined the high school economics teachers dining at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, the annual “Night at the Fed” event.  The bank brought in Keith Phillips, a Senior Economist and Advisor from the San Antonio Branch to talk about “Where Will Your Students Find Jobs?”

One of his charts showed drill rig counts since 2000, on a slide, “Drilling Rig Count has Surged to High Levels.”  Among other things, that partly explains why Texas was not so severely hit with the recession as the rest of the nation (though jobless counts in the past couple of months suggest Texas may catch up).

Sitting at the front table I could not help but be impressed with the rig count line.  In 2000, when Bush came to office, there were about 300 active drilling rigs in the country, in oil and gas.  Over seven years that count rose to about 1,000, then plunged in Bush’s last year in the economic downturn.

Obama came into office with a drill rig count just slightly higher than Bush had two terms previously.  In three years, drill rig counts have climbed to near the height of the Bush administration’s best year, just under 1,000 (if I’m reading the chart correctly — and the piece above suggests I am).

Here’s the chart from Baker-Hughes — showing about the same rig count Dr. Phillips showed:

Baker-Hughes Drill Rig Count, November 2011 (back to 2000)

Baker-Hughes Drill Rig Count, November 2011 (back to 2000) - click the image to go to WTRG Economics site and current chart

Here’s a more colorful, more clear version from EnergyDigger.com:

Drill Rig Count history from Energy Digger.com, November 18, 2011

Drill Rig Count history from Energy Digger.com, November 18, 2011

In other words, drill rigs have increased in the three years of the Obama administration at about double the rate of increase of the Bush administration.

When does Obama get credit for the increase in oil and gas exploration in the U.S. in his administration?

More, Resources: 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 at 1:54 am and is filed under Energy, Hoaxes, Politics, President Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

21 Responses to Obama unchained oil and gas exploration in the U.S.?

  1. James Kessler says:
    November 29, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    Oh look…silence from Alan…

    Like

  2. James Kessler says:
    November 28, 2011 at 11:32 am

    To quote Ed:
    Remember, it was the U.S. who, as President Kennedy said, put a man on the Moon and returned him safely to the Earth. We value human life, and we don’t think that corporate profits should come at the expense of all other industries, human life, and human ways of life along the Gulf of Mexico.

    Ed, you have to remember that Republicans only give a damn about life before it’s born. After it’s born said life can die by the thousands and republicans wouldn’t lift a finger to help.

    As for you Alan I point you to these two sites:
    http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=95
    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

    The first one says that in 2008 the United States exported just over 1.62 million bbl per day.

    As of 2010, according to the second site, the United States exported 9.688 million bbl per day. Now granted I’m no Charlie Eppes but last time I checked 9.6888 million is a bigger number then 1.62 million.

    Now I point out that the second website is the CIA’s. Have fun arguing with the CIA, Alan.

    Oh…and the first website got its info from the 2008 CIA world factbook.

    Now I’m going to assume you’re not dingy enough to argue against the CIA, Alan. So would you like to acknowledge your mistake and apologize for it?

    Or would that be expecting too much honesty from you?

    Like

  3. Ed Darrell says:
    November 27, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    Speaking of propaganda, and TASS and Pravda, that post over at the Heritage Foundation site is a real pip. It came at the end of 2010, and it suggests energy calamity for the U.S. if the drill regulating officials don’t back off and let oil companies run rampant through the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

    Clearly, that position is dead wrong now, even if it wasn’t total fantasy a year ago.

    Alan graciously gave us the link; I graciously commented there, and the comment went into moderation.

    Will Heritage Foundation ever let the facts see the light of day?

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/12/01/seven-years-of-bad-policy-government-maintains-offshore-drilling-ban/#IDComment228137119

    So, here in 2011 now we see the results:

    1. In February 2011 the U.S. became an oil exporting nation again.
    2. In each year of the Obama administration, domestic oil production has increased, a stark contrast to the Bush administration when domestic oil production decreased each year.
    3. According to figures from the Federal Reserve, in three years of the Obama administration, drill rig counts (a key measure of the health of oil exploration) have risen twice as fast as in the Bush administration, and oil and gas exploration is healthy. Deepwater drilling is down slightly, in the Gulf of Mexico — but that’s understandable considering the disaster there in 2010.

    So, the “seven years of bad policy” in the headline is the Bush administration, and a stark contrast to the “three years of great policy” of the Obama administration, right?

    It’ll be interesting to watch and see.

    Like

  4. Ed Darrell says:
    November 27, 2011 at 11:55 am

    Let’s be clear on the facts:

    1. In three years, drill rig counts under the Obama administration equal the drill rig counts of the 8 years of the Bush administration — oil and natural gas exploration is among the healthiest of U.S. industries.
    2. Domestic oil production has increased each year of the Obama administration, a stark contrast to the decreases in domestic oil production in each of the Bush administration years.
    3. In February, the U.S. became an oil exporting nation once again.
    4. Last year, in a risky venture, BP and Transocean mismanaged a deepwater drilling project and nearly wiped out the fishing and seafood industries in the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico, cost the nation more than $20 billion dollars, and killed 11 people in the catastrophic explosions that kicked off the disaster that continues to this day.

    So, I point out that it’s false to claim that Obama is to blame for oil production declines, since oil production didn’t decline, oil exploration rose, and even in the Gulf of Mexico there is only a modest decline in deepwater drilling.

    Alan said:

    Tell me, in another life did you work for TASS or Pravda? You are quite talented at putting out misinformation.

    Alan? You’re looking in a mirror, Kindly re-evaluate.

    Yeah, the Heritage Fascist Foundation group is partly right: Oil exploration in the deepwaters of the Gulf have been appropriately slowed trying to prevent a replay of the disaster of 2010. No, HF is wrong, that’s not Obama’s fault — it’s to Obama’s credit. No, it’s not a serious block of energy exploration in the U.S., it’s a rational evaluation of whether and how deepwater exploration and production can be done safely. Remember, it was the U.S. who, as President Kennedy said, put a man on the Moon and returned him safely to the Earth. We value human life, and we don’t think that corporate profits should come at the expense of all other industries, human life, and human ways of life along the Gulf of Mexico.

    In the meantime: Oil exploration is up. Oil production is up, way up over the Bush administration. The U.S. is now exporting oil, and the oil industry is very, very healthy on Obama’s watch.

    P.S.: Please turn in your TASS credentials; they are no good anymore.

    Like

  5. Alan Scott says:
    November 27, 2011 at 11:15 am

    Ed Darrell,

    ” You know, Alan, you’ve got a loser position there. You’re trying to blame Obama, falsely, for energy woes of the country. ”

    Tell me, in another life did you work for TASS or Pravda? You are quite talented at putting out misinformation.

    So your hero, Barak Hussein Obama is an advocate of Sarah Palin’s ” drill baby drill ” ? So how do you splain last December’s ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf and off of the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific?????

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/12/01/seven-years-of-bad-policy-government-maintains-offshore-drilling-ban/

    Again , I say the rig count is up in spite of President Obama, not because of as you say .

    And, just because there may be a lot of offshore rigs, it does not follow that they are all in the best places for producing oil .

    You may convince your uninformed readers that Obama has not damaged America’s energy position, but it is an insult to the intelligence of the rest of us .

    Like

  6. Ed Darrell says:
    November 26, 2011 at 4:32 am

    You know, Alan, you’ve got a loser position there. You’re trying to blame Obama, falsely, for energy woes of the country.

    But the chief measure of our energy capability at any given moment is drill rig count. Obama’s drill rig count has expanded to equal George Bush’s 8-year total, in just three years.

    You might want to look at actual oil and gas production in the U.S., because surely, were your claims close to accurate, the “new rules and restrictions” imposed by the Obama administration (really leftover Bushies, but we can discuss that some other time) must have hurt production, especially with the “ban on drilling” in the Gulf (another hoax).

    Yes, let’s look at domestic production:

    Domestic Oil Production, Annual Change, 2000 to 2011

    Oops. Your claim loses again.

    Like

  7. Alan Scott says:
    November 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Ed Darrell,

    Alas, I can’t find my link to the article, but this one will have to do,

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/16/regulation-nation-shell-ready-to-move-on-alaska-wells-if-alphabet-soup/

    Again, I disbelieve everything you have said .

    Like

  8. Jim says:
    November 25, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    Ed says, I gave you the report from the Federal Reserve

    Yes, you did. And you were correct. I’m not sure how Alan will respond but would you care to take bets on how long before the Paultards make their appearance, fuliminating about Jewish bankers and one world government?

    The Fed is Satan’s trick, you know… @@

    Like

  9. Ed Darrell says:
    November 24, 2011 at 11:13 pm

    I think your figures are not solid.

    Alan said:

    Example, There are 27 Billion barrels of oil just waiting for Shell oil to come and get off of the coast of Alaska. Shell has spent $4 Billion and wasted 5 years on this. That is a pretty good reserve to add to US supplies. But alas it is not to be.

    All we have to do is sacrifice 20,000 Alaskans, their food supplies, and the natural resource of Alaska that could be renewable in wildlife and surface value — and if we do, if your figures are right, we get a modest bump in world oil supply and a negligible improvement in gasoline prices.

    But, alas, your claim of 27 billion barrels is pie in the sky speculation, even if we decided to sacrifice the 20,000 people.

    Got different figures? Bring ’em, with good citations.

    Wikipedia has the summary:

    In 1998, the USGS estimated that between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels (2.54×109 m3) of technically recoverable crude oil and natural gas liquids are in the coastal plain area of ANWR, with a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels (1.65×109 m3), of which 7.7 billion barrels (1.22×109 m3) lie within the Federal portion of the ANWR 1002 Area.[17] In comparison, the estimated volume of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in the rest of the United States is about 120 billion barrels (1.9×1010 m3).[24] The ANWR and undiscovered estimates are categorized as prospective resources and therefore, not proved. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) reports US proved reserves are roughly 29 billion barrels (4.6×109 m3) of crude and natural gas liquids, of which 21 billion barrels (3.3×109 m3) are crude.[25] A variety of sources compiled by the DOE estimate world proved oil and gas condensate reserves to range from 1.1 to 1.3 trillion barrels (210 km3).[26]

    The DOE reports there is uncertainty about the underlying resource base in ANWR. “The USGS oil resource estimates are based largely on the oil productivity of geologic formations that exist in the neighboring State lands and which continue into ANWR. Consequently, there is considerable uncertainty regarding both the size and quality of the oil resources that exist in ANWR. Thus, the potential ultimate oil recovery and potential yearly production are highly uncertain.” [24]

    In 2010, the USGS revised an estimate of the oil in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPRA), concluding that it contained approximately “896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil”.[27] The NPRA is west of ANWR. The reason for the decrease is because of new exploratory drilling, which showed that many areas that were believed to hold oil actually hold natural gas.

    The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day (124,000 m3/d) in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day (113,000 m3/d) in 2030. In the low and high ANWR oil resource cases, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR peaks in 2028 at 510,000 and 1.45 million barrels per day (231,000 m3/d), respectively. Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels (410,000,000 m3) for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels (680,000,000 m3), respectively.[24] In 2007, the United States consumed 20.68 m bbls of petroleum products per day. It produced roughly 5 million barrels per day (790,000 m3/d) of crude oil, and imported 10 million barrels per day (1,600,000 m3/d) of crude and 3.5 million barrels per day (560,000 m3/d) of petroleum products.[28]
    [edit] Projected impact on global price

    The total production from ANWR would be between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030. Consequently, ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices.[24] Furthermore, the Energy Information Administration does not feel ANWR will affect the global price of oil when past behaviors of the oil market are considered. “The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case.”[24] “Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount.”[24]
    [edit] Opposing views

    President Barack Obama opposes drilling in the Arctic Refuge.[29] In a League of Conservation Voters questionnaire, Obama said, “I strongly reject drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because it would irreversibly damage a protected national wildlife refuge without creating sufficient oil supplies to meaningfully affect the global market price or have a discernible impact on US energy security.” Senator John McCain, while running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, said, “As far as ANWR is concerned, I don’t want to drill in the Grand Canyon, and I don’t want to drill in the Everglades. This is one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of the world.”[30]

    In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy reported uncertainties about the USGS oil estimates for ANWR and the projected effects on oil price and supplies. “There is little direct knowledge regarding the petroleum geology of the ANWR region…. ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices…. Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States.”[24]

    The DOE reported that annual United States consumption of crude oil and petroleum products was 7.55 billion barrels (1.200×109 m3) in 2006 and again in 2007, totaling 15.1 billion barrels (2.40×109 m3).[31] In comparison, the USGS estimated that the ANWR reserve contains 10.4 billion barrels (1.65×109 m3). Although, only 7.7 billion barrels (1.22×109 m3) were thought to be within the proposed drilling region.[17]

    “Environmentalists and most congressional Democrats have resisted drilling in the area because the required network of oil platforms, pipelines, roads and support facilities, not to mention the threat of foul spills, would play havoc on wildlife. The coastal plain, for example, is a calving home for some 129,000 caribou.” [2]

    The NRDC argues that drilling would not take place in a compact, 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) space as proponents claim, but in fact, undertake “a spiderweb of industrial sprawl across the whole of the refuge’s 1,500,000-acre (6,100 km2) coastal plain, including drill sites, airports and roads, and gravel mines, it would have a footprint of 12,000 acres (49 km2), but actually spread across an area of more than 640,000 acres (2,600 km2), or 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2). Additionally, drilling opponents warn of the danger of oil spills in the region.[32][33]

    The US Fish and Wildlife Service has stated that the 1002 area has a “greater degree of ecological diversity than any other similar sized area of Alaska’s north slope.” The FWS also states, “Those who campaigned to establish the Arctic Refuge recognized its wild qualities and the significance of these spatial relationships. Here lies an unusually diverse assemblage of large animals and smaller, less-appreciated life forms, tied to their physical environments and to each other by natural, undisturbed ecological and evolutionary processes.”[34]

    Prior to 2008, 39% of the residents of the United States[35] and a majority of Canadians opposed drilling in the refuge.[36]

    The Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which represents 229 Native Alaskan tribes, officially opposes any development in ANWR.[37] In March 2005 Luci Beach,[38] the executive director of the steering committee for the Native Alaskan and Canadian Gwich’in tribe (a member of the AI-TC), during a trip to Washington D.C., while speaking for a unified group of 55 Alaskan and Canadian indigenous peoples, said that drilling in ANWR is “a human rights issue and it’s a basic Aboriginal human rights issue.”[39] She went on to say, “Sixty to 70 percent of our diet comes from the land and caribou is one of the primary animals that we depend on for sustenance.” The Gwich’in tribe adamantly believes that drilling in ANWR would have serious negative effects on the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd that they partially rely on for food.[40]

    A part of the Inupiat population of Kaktovik, and 5,000 to 7,000 Gwich’in peoples feel their lifestyle would be disrupted or destroyed by drilling.[41] The Inupiat from Point Hope, Alaska recently passed resolutions [42] recognizing that drilling in ANWR would allow resource exploitation in other wilderness areas. The Inupiat, Gwitch’in, and other tribes are calling for sustainable energy practices and policies. The Tanana Chiefs Conference (representing 42 Alaska Native villages from 37 tribes) opposes drilling, as do at least 90 Native American tribes. The National Congress of American Indians (representing 250 tribes), the Native American Rights Fund as well as some Canadian tribes also oppose drilling in the 1002 area.

    In May 2006 a resolution was passed in the village of Kaktovik calling Shell Oil Company “a hostile and dangerous force” which authorized the mayor to take legal and other actions necessary to “defend the community.”[43] The resolution also calls on all North Slope communities to oppose Shell owned offshore leases unrelated to the ANWR controversy until the company becomes more respectful of the people.[44] Mayor Sonsalla says Shell has failed to work with the villagers on how the company would protect bowhead whales which are part of Native culture, subsistence life, and diet.[44]

    USGS has a less hopeful view than you, based on pragmatic considerations of oil extraction and more recent assessments of the amount of oil available:

    The total quantity of technically recoverable oil within the entire assessment area is estimated to be between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels (95-percent and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels. Technically recoverable oil within the ANWR 1002 area (excluding State and Native areas) is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels (95- and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels (table 1).

    Quantities of technically recoverable oil are not expected to be uniformly distributed throughout the ANWR 1002 area. The undeformed area (fig. 2) is estimated to contain between 3.4 and 10.2 billion barrels of oil (BBO) (95- and 5-percent probability), with a mean of 6.4 BBO. The deformed area (fig. 2) is estimated to contain between 0 and 3.2 BBO (95- and 5-percent probability), with a mean of 1.2 BBO.

    Figure 5 shows the expected numbers of accumulations and volumes of technically recoverable oil grouped by accumulation-size class. It shows that most of the oil is estimated to occur in accumulations that exceed 100 million barrels, the size of recently developed north Alaskan stand-alone accumulations. Moreover, at the mean, nearly 80 percent of the oil is thought to occur in the western part of the ANWR 1002 area, which is closest to existing infrastructure. Volumes of oil are expected to occur as several accumulations rather than a single large accumulation.

    Commercial viability of a discovery depends on oil price, accumulation size, recovery technology, and proximity to existing infrastructure (pipelines, etc.). The economic analysis presents the cost of transforming technically recoverable resources into producible proved reserves—it shows the market price that would have to be paid to find, develop, produce, and transport to market (lower 48 West Coast) any particular quantity of assessed oil assuming current technology and existing scientific understanding. Figure 6, which is based on the field-size distributions associated with the mean, 95-, and 5-percent probability oil estimates, summarizes the findings of the economic analysis. The cost functions are calculated in constant 1996 dollars and are based on the expectation that production will repay all operating costs, including taxes and transport to market, all investment expenditures, and provide and an after-tax rate of return of at least 12 percent on the investment.

    So, in summary:

    1. Your estimate of oil recoverable is very high, 50% to 200% higher than USGS estimates.
    2. Recovery of the oil threatens aquatic and land mammals, including those local populations depend on.
    3. All local peoples are opposed to drilling there, because they say it will destroy their tribes and families. These are the people other than the oil companies who would most benefit from drilling, by the way.
    4. Assuming your high estimates, the amount of additional oil available is negligible to extremely modest.
    5. Even without drilling the Arctic, Obama’s way ahead of Bush on increasing oil exploration and oil production. So any way you slice it, the claim Obama is “anti-oil” or “anti-exploration” is false, based on the facts on the ground, especially the number of drill rigs actually used to explore for oil.

    Like

  10. Ed Darrell says:
    November 24, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    Also according to The American Thinker your hero Obama has his Interior Department delaying permits and stalling drilling in the Gulf. Now either the American Thinker or you are in serious error . I just do not know who to believe.

    American Thinker? What, the Pravda site was down? Your Saga subscription lapsed? Mad was unavailable to you?

    I gave you the report from the Federal Reserve, and I backed it up with the figures from Baker-Hughes, the most authoritative tracker of drilling in the world. If you have some challenge to their figures, can you bring us a serious source to challenge it?

    The reason I bother with this is precisely to show the hoax claims you’re making are false. I bother with this “obvious deception precisely because you and others try to make it, and because you deny you’re trying to deceive. It’s always possible that you are simply among the gullibly misled, of course. In that case, you need the information that you are being deceived by “an obvious deception,” so you can correct those who deceive you, and not be deceived yourself.

    Like

  11. Alan Scott says:
    November 24, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    Ed Darrell,

    ” One favorite, hoax meme is the claim that Obama hurt energy exploration in the U.S. ”

    Again, why do you still bother with this obvious deception ? Sometimes Obama does not even have to use his Kommissars in government to do his dirty work. His allies in the flat earth environmental idiot movement just bury the oil companies in law suits. You know, like they do the nuke plants?

    Example, There are 27 Billion barrels of oil just waiting for Shell oil to come and get off of the coast of Alaska. Shell has spent $4 Billion and wasted 5 years on this. That is a pretty good reserve to add to US supplies. But alas it is not to be.

    Also according to The American Thinker your hero Obama has his Interior Department delaying permits and stalling drilling in the Gulf. Now either the American Thinker or you are in serious error . I just do not know who to believe.

    Like

  12. Ed Darrell says:
    November 23, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    Since you hate all oil production, why do you even bother with this deception. You are a global warming, fossil fuel hating greenie. Be proud of what you are.

    Your stock-in-trade is misunderstanding the facts before you, and mis-stating those facts you may happen to understand, isn’t it.

    Is there anything you say that isn’t exactly the opposite of the truth, if you know it?

    I’m no more anti-oil than John D. Rockefeller, the first. But I do pay attention to the facts, the better to make good policy, as Rockefeller would have noted.

    Like

  13. Ed Darrell says:
    November 23, 2011 at 8:29 pm

    A cloud behind every silver lining, eh, Alan?

    Here are the facts for the Gulf of Mexico, as of April 2011 — the decreases seem logical to me, considering the complete breakdown of regulation and the catastrophic failure of oil companies to police themselves in the lawless period leading up to the BP/Transocean disaster

    To summarize there were 34 floaters and 41 jackups under contract around the time of the Macondo oil spill. Today, there are 27 floaters and 35 jackups under contract.

    So there is no really great decrease there, either.

    But confronted with the facts, that oil and gas drilling has accelerated under Obama at twice the rate of expansion under George Bush, it’s interesting that you pick on the one area where there needed to be much greater control, and you complain about slightly greater control.

    700 or so drill rigs up, you complain about five down.

    Not only is your glass half-empty rather than half-full, you’re claiming the water is bad, too.

    Overall, the disaster in the Gulf was a disaster for oil companies, too — and despite that, the Obama administration is not far off the pace of the go-go Bush administration in the Gulf. Drilling is “on the mend” in the Gulf, according to the experts:

    While on the mend, Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling activities are below levels experienced prior to last year’s blowout. Specifically, combined utilization (for drillships, semisubs, and jackups) is approximately 300 basis points off pace, averaging 57% in 2Q11 versus 60% for the region during 1Q10.

    Of the three types of rigs, semisubs are faring the worst on a comparative basis to results prior to Macondo. We note that during the first quarter of 2010 semisub utilization was nearly 93%. Today, the average utilization for semisubs in the Gulf of Mexico is 71%.

    In the most recent update by the BOEMRE, 12 of the 18 rigs currently active in the GOM deepwaters were semisubs. However, there are 25 semisubs in total in the region including five that are cold stacked and two ready stacked. Given the costs involved in bringing stacked rigs back to marketable conditions, the overall semisub utilization rates may continue to languish for a while.

    Both drillships and jackups utilization rates are now better than pre-Macondo levels. Drillships averaged 91% during 2Q10, up 300 basis points from 88% in 1Q10. And while jackup utilization rates are higher, there are actually ten fewer rigs now working in the region compared to 2010 levels. So the jackup utilization rate of 48% in 2Q10, given its smaller base, is not an apples-to-apples comparison versus its 1Q10 rate of 46%.

    You’re crying crocodile tears. And that troubles me. Alligators are much more American. The gators are doing fine.

    Like

  14. Alan Scott says:
    November 23, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    Ed Darrell,

    As usual your posts are deceptive . El Presidentee Obama has dis couraged drilling off shore . If the rig count is up during the Obama regime it is in spite of not because of our fearless leader . He did close off huge tracks to exploration. He halted drilling offshore for awhile after the BP little leak. Since you hate all oil production, why do you even bother with this deception. You are a global warming, fossil fuel hating greenie. Be proud of what you are.

    Like

  15. Black Flag® says:
    November 22, 2011 at 10:43 am

    Ed,

    You seem capable enough to cherry pick. Because you cherry pick, you censor.

    Further, as I’ve said before, other sites do not seem to be having your problem – it is you, Ed.

    Further, as I’ve said before, if you don’t know how to do it, ask. This is not a mystery.

    Like

  16. Ed Darrell says:
    November 22, 2011 at 9:37 am

    Quod erat demonstrandum.

    I take it, Black Flag, that you’d rather I not spend any time rescuing your posts from the spam filters. I don’t know what you did exactly to convince the filter you’re a threat, or spam, but you’ve demonstrated only that I have more patience with you than a machine designed to prevent offensive and inane posts from hitting this blog.

    If your posts ever see the light of day again, it’s only out of mercy or pity, and my coincidentally noticing you’re not actively promoting child porn.

    Like

  17. Black Flag® says:
    November 22, 2011 at 7:54 am

    Ed,

    Then you are admitting you are using it to censor me.

    I retract my statement previously.

    You are censoring and you are a coward.

    Like

  18. Ed Darrell says:
    November 22, 2011 at 7:51 am

    I’ll take advice from someone who can demonstrate citizenship and self-control. Black Flag, you ingrate, you are not that person.

    Fix your manners.

    Stick to what you know about — and spam filters aren’t your forte by any stretch.

    But of course, if you stuck to what you know about, you’d be silent.

    BF, you don’t have the guts to demonstrate manners, the common sense to be anything but a troll, I fear. Prove me wrong.

    Like

  19. Black Flag® says:
    November 22, 2011 at 7:35 am

    And fix your spam filter – or are you really using it as a censorship tool and hiding behind it?

    Like

  20. Black Flag® says:
    November 22, 2011 at 7:12 am

    No one who drills for oil in Alaska does that to kill caribou – the ol’ Socialist rant of whatever a Socialist does not like, he misdirects the argument from the truth -where he cannot win- into emotion, where he is the master of irrational appeals.

    Next, it is obvious that oil prices determines drilling rig utilization – so, really, you are saying that due to Obama actions, you pay more for oil then you did before!

    What has decreased is offshore drilling – and that is directly due to Obama – and that is probably what your friend is referring to, but as you failed to actually provide his text, all we know is you are making up stories as you usually do.

    Like

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