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Amusing

Quote Of The Day

May 26, 2008 gags

Oil company executives met with Congress yesterday.

Oil executives talking to politicians. I believe they set a record for the most number of lies ever told in one room. – Jay Leno

Other

Man Drilling For Oil In His Own Backyard

May 20, 2008 gags

Let’s see… oil is at about 127 dollars a barrel and he is producing about 3 barrels a day. That comes to $139,065 a year. It sounds like an investment that pays for itself. Where can I buy the equipment to drill my own well?

God bless America!

Indiana Man Operates Oil Well in Backyard, Producing Three Barrels of Crude a Day

It’s just a drop in the global oil bucket, but an eastern Indiana man is operating an oil well in his backyard in an effort to capitalize on soaring crude prices.

Greg Losh’s rig produces three barrels of crude oil a day, though he told FOX News that he hasn’t started selling it yet. For now, he and his partners are keeping it in storage containers.

He declined to say how much oil they’ve collected in the two weeks they’ve been pumping.

But as oil is going for about $127 a barrel on the international market, three daily would yield just under $400 a day for Losh on the global spot market — or 1/100,000 of the daily production increase the Saudis agreed to earlier this month.

Still, in spite of those returns and the $100,000 it costs to drill a well, it’s worth it to Losh considering the current price of oil, he told WISH-TV in Indianapolis.

The oil his well produces comes from the Trenton field that fueled the growth of east-central Indiana cities more than a century ago, he told the station.

He expects to drill four more wells soon on his property in the town of Selma about 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

“It’s a money maker. It is paying off,” Losh told FOX.

The oil is stored in a tank and transported to Ohio for sale, he said. His oil well also produces natural gas to heat his home and several others.

Amusing

Congress Responsible For High Oil and Gas Prices

May 18, 2008 gags

I think the explanation for why the Democrats are always on the wrong side, choosing to keep oil in the ground and punish us with higher gas prices is finally coming to light.

The Truth about Oil in America is that we have over a trillion barrels. Why then would Democrats constantly be opposed to us using any of our own fossil fuel to lower prices here? There can only be one logical answer for this. The Democrats are being paid by OPEC leaders to stop development.

Let’s look at the facts. OPEC has money, a lot of money. OPEC and the Islamic Middle East really have only one thing the world wants and that’s oil. If we take away that oil revenue and allow the USA to become “energy independent”, or even not as needful or dependent on OPEC , then OPEC and the entire Islamic Middle East are in deep do-do.

So, the logical thing for OPEC to do is spread some of that oil-money around. Just buying them a little insurance, you know?

OPEC shrugs its shoulder at the fact that Americans pay $4 a gallon for gas. Why would they care? After all, it’s not like any one’s forcing American politicians to take this money.

Crude Mistake

Energy: With the price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC’s No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress.

As President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask the House of Saud to open the oil spigots a bit wider, Congress showed once again how clueless it is when it comes to energy policy.

Underscoring its failure to grasp the nature of our current problems, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday refused to end its moratorium on oil shale development in Colorado.

“If we are really serious about reducing pain at the pump,” Colorado’s senior senator, Republican Wayne Allard, said, “this is a vote that would make a difference in people’s lives.” He’s right.

But the shale proposal went down to defeat with Allard and 13 other Republican members in favor and 15 Democrats opposed. Once again, Democrats were on the wrong side, opting to keep oil in the ground and punish you with higher prices as a result.

This was no minor thing. Estimates put the amount of oil locked in shale in both Canada and the U.S. at more than 1 trillion barrels. Pulling out even a tenth of that would quadruple our current reserves.

This is the same Congress that refuses to allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which holds up to 20 billion barrels of crude, or offshore, where another 30 billion await.

Meanwhile, Brazil — which recently made a major oil discovery almost in sight of Rio’s beaches — announced that it has leased 80% of the world’s deep-sea offshore oil rigs. In other words, Brazil unlike the U.S., isn’t dithering as prices soar. It’s drilling.

If you think Congress’ decision-making on energy couldn’t get any worse, think again. While Bush was in Riyadh urging the Saudis to pump more oil, congressional Democrats were busy undercutting him, threatening to halt arms sales to our Mideast ally.

It was a politically peevish move with consequences both for U.S. energy security and the balance of power. If we don’t sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Russia will. The result would be a loss of American leverage with the Saudis, who, like many, feel threatened by a nuclear Iran and the menace of al-Qaida.

At least Bush convinced the Saudis to boost output 300,000 barrels a day. That helps. But we still have to do more ourselves.

The U.S. uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. But only 8 million come from our own sources. That leaves a 13-million-barrel-a-day deficit that, at $126 a barrel, will cost us $600 billion to plug this year. That’s more than two-thirds of our total trade deficit.

Congress could reduce much of our oil shortfall by drilling for more on our own territory. This would lower prices and increase security. Yet, Congress seems dead set on doing the opposite.

With its failure to tap the vast supplies in ANWR and offshore, its passage of costly global-warming legislation and now its refusal to exploit our massive resources of oil shale, Congress has set us on a path to less energy, higher prices and weakened national security.

Amusing

Saudis And Democrats See No Reason To Raise Oil Production Now

May 17, 2008 gags

How ironic! We ask the Saudi’s to increase their oil production and when refused Pelosi, Schumer and all the other Liberals start whining. The same bunch of Liberals won’t let us drill, produce coal, build refineries or build nuclear plants. They refuse to seek our own energy independence.

Remember this every single time you fill up your tank; with new domestic oil supplies and nuclear power YOUR PRICE AT THE PUMP WILL DROP LIKE A STONE. The people standing in our way are the Demo-Leftist-Fascists who “mandate” and “prohibit” all day long.

I think it is time that we hold hearings just to see who in Congress is taking lobby money from “Big Oil” and wacko environmentalist groups. There can be no other reason for denying us our energy independence.

Saudis see no reason to raise oil production now

Saudi Arabia’s leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until customers demand it, apparently rebuffing President Bush amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices.

It was Bush’s second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, head of the monarchy that rules this desert kingdom that is a longtime prime U.S. ally and home to the world’s largest oil reserves. But Saudi officials stuck to their position that they will only pump more oil into the system when asked to by buyers, something they say is not happening now, the president’s national security adviser told reporters.

“Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy,” Stephen Hadley said on a day when oil prices rose above $127 a barrel, a record high. “What the Saudis wanted to tell us was we’re doing everything we can do … to meet this problem, but it’s a complicated problem.”

The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, announced that the kingdom decided on May 10 to raise production by 300,000 barrels at the request of customers, including the United States. He said that increase was sufficient.

“Supply and demand are in balance today,” he told a news conference. “How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?”

Bernard Picchi, an energy analyst at Wall Street Access, an independent research firm, said the 300,000-barrel Saudi production increase was “a token amount” that is not expected to have much impact on prices.

It would be different, he said, if Saudi Arabia boosted production by 1 million or 1.5 million barrels a day. The announced increase will have Saudi Arabia pumping 9.45 million barrels a day by June, Saudi officials said. That’s about 2 million barrels below its capacity.

Oil prices advanced Friday as traders, unimpressed by efforts to boost supply, kept buying on the expectation that prices would keep setting new records.

Saudi Arabia often adjusts its output to meet demand, and the increase coincides with the start of the peak driving season in the U.S. “It’s a way to raise production without raising production,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. “I think it was a way to save face.”

Hadley never mentioned the Saudi’s new production in his recap with reporters. He said the Saudis briefed Bush again on their plan to increase their production capacity over time. They also argued that even an increase would be unlikely to bring down the soaring prices, driven more by uncertainty in the market, lack of refining capacity for the type of oil readily available and other complicated dynamics, he said.

Economists say prices are being driven up by increased demand, not slowed production. Energy-guzzlers China and India are stretching supplies.

As a result, Hadley suggested the White House was satisfied with — or at least accepted — the Saudi response. He added, however, the Bush administration will see if the explanation “conforms to what our experts say.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the discussion with Bush about oil was friendly. “He didn’t punch any tables or shout at anybody,” the minister said. “I think he was satisfied.”

High energy costs are a major drain on the U.S. economy, which is experiencing a slowdown that some think is already a recession. At the pump, gas prices rose to a national average of $3.78 per gallon on Friday, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

When Bush and Abdullah met in the kingdom in mid-January, the president also sought more Saudi output in a plea that also ultimately was for naught.

Iran was the other dominant topic of Bush’s overnight visit with the king.

The two shared a concern over the recent violence in Lebanon, where Hezbollah overran Beirut neighborhoods last week in protest of measures aimed at the group by the country’s government. The display of military power by the Shiite militant group, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, resulted in the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

With Shiite-dominated Iran backing Hezbollah, Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia — eager to stop any advance of regional power by Tehran — joins the West in supporting Lebanon’s government. Hadley said Bush and Abdullah shared a concern that the recent events would “embolden Iran.” The U.S. and Saudi Arabia, he said, “are of one mind in condemning what Hezbollah did.”

On Thursday, Hezbollah and the government reached a deal to end the violence after Lebanon’s Cabinet reversed measures aimed at reining in the militants.

Bush’s Saudi stop was intended, in part, to celebrate 75 years of formal U.S.-Saudi relations and strengthen ties that, once strong, have frayed over the perception Washington favors Israel too much in the dispute with the Palestinians, the Iraq war and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 airline hijackers were Saudis, and Americans blamed Saudis for allowing the religious extremism that gave rise to them, an accusation that stings here.

Bush was spending the day with Abdullah at his lavish farm complex outside Riyadh, talking mostly out of public view over multiple tea services and meals. Abdullah greeted Bush warmly at the airport, and rode with him in his limousine out into the desert.

The White House hoped that new agreements formalized during Bush’s visit would give the relationship a boost.

Among them was an agreement for the U.S. to assist the kingdom in developing civilian nuclear power. Another agreement involves U.S. promises to help protect any Saudi nuclear infrastructure with training, the exchange of experts “and other support services as needed.” Hadley said it would not involve U.S. troops.

But the rising price of oil commanded attention.

When Bush first ran for president in 2000, he criticized the Clinton administration for high fuel prices and said the president must “jawbone” oil producing nations and persuade them to drop rates. At that time, oil was nearing $28 a barrel — less than a quarter what it is now.

Bush’s visit comes two days after Congress voted to temporarily halt daily shipments of 70,000 barrels of oil to the nation’s emergency reserve.

After Bush’s talks on Friday, his administration announced in Washington that it has canceled oil shipments into the reserve beginning in July, when the current purchase contract expires. Bush has refused to stop pouring oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, saying the stockpile was meant for emergencies and that halting the shipments would have little or no impact on gasoline or crude oil prices.

Amusing

ANWR Derangement Syndrome: Senate Democrats Reject Domestic Oil Drilling

May 14, 2008 gags

“We can’t drill our way to lower prices,” said Sen. Dick “Head” Durbin, D-Ill.

Hey Dick, if we can’t drill our way to lower prices then why did this vote occur in the first place? If your desire is to increase the supply to the public, then why not actually increase the supply to the public?

Senate Passes Halt On Oil Stockpiling To Curb Gas Prices

A veto-proof majority in the Senate voted Tuesday to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to curtail soaring gasoline prices.

The vote dealt a setback to President Bush’s policy of boosting oil stockpiles in the event of a major supply disruption. But it had a limited immediate market impact.

Crude oil spiked to $126.98 a barrel on fuel oil demand and Iran’s talk of cutting exports. Oil shed some gains on the SPR vote, but still closed up $1.57 at $125.80.

The Senate voted 97 to 1 to halt crude deliveries now averaging 70,000 barrels a day until the price of oil drops below $75. That’s less than 0.1% of global demand of 87 million barrels. A House vote was scheduled later in the day.

The Energy Information Administration estimates stockpiling 100,000 barrels a day adds $2 a barrel to the price of oil and 4-5 cents a gallon to gasoline.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office says an SPR halt could save drivers 5-24 cents a gallon.

Influential oil economist Philip Verleger told Congress in December that filling the strategic reserve “may have added as much as 10% to the light sweet crude price.”

He suggests the Energy Department sell light sweet crude stocks and fill the SPR with more-plentiful sour crude, which has a higher sulfur content. That means refiner rules would need to be relaxed in an emergency, he says.

The White House has kept boosting crude stockpiles over growing criticism. Bush argues that preparing for a national emergency trumps the negligible price declines that would result.

He proposed doubling SPR capacity to 1.5 billion barrels in his 2007 State of the Union address. The reserve now holds just over 700 million barrels, enough to cover 58 days of imports.

“Congressional tampering with presidential authority to fill the SPR may be unconstitutional,” wrote Heritage Foundation senior fellow Ariel Cohen. The move “interferes with the executive branch’s authority to conduct national security policy.”

Republican lawmakers are parting ways with Bush on the strategic reserve, but they are united in supporting more domestic drilling.

“(W)e’ve been heartened that by bringing up the SPR plan Democrats are conceding a link between increasing our supply and reducing our price at the pump,” House Minority Leader John Boehner and Republican Whip Roy Blunt said in a statement.

They noted in a letter to Pelosi that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling could eventually yield 1 million barrels per day. The Senate on Tuesday voted 56 to 42 against a bid to open ANWR.

The senators also urged Congress to lift restrictions on deep-water drilling off U.S. coasts.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing a resolution to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia until it ups oil output.

“If Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries do not substantially increase production, we in Congress will block their lucrative arms deals,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Democratic leaders haven’t backed a federal gas-tax holiday proposed by presidential contenders Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.