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Exxon and Russian Operation Discovers Oil Field Larger Than the Gulf of Mexico
An anonymous reader writes The state-run OAO Rosneft has discovered a vast pool of crude in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, arguably bigger than the Gulf of Mexico. From the article: "The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today."
"The well found about 1 billion barrels of oil..."
The world uses 86 million barrels per day, so this buys us about 11 extra days. Whoopee Do...
Have you noticed at all that these new finds are in areas where it is more expensive to extract the oil? Underwater is a lot more expensive than on land. Under the Arctic Ocean? Well, waiting 5 years will probably make it cheaper, as ice heaves are terrible to construct around. Of course, 5 years may not be long enough to clear the ice.
FWIW, I'd bet that there are lots of undiscovered oil fields under deep ocean, or perhaps that you need to access by drilling sideways into the continental shelf. But that's expensive even compared to working in the Arctic Ocean.
Additionally, of course, every gallon of oil we burn increases our CO2 level. That's not just greenhouse, that's also ocean acidification. But you can't measure the damage that is done in any one day...so you don't need to worry about that, right?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If you think that Artic or deep ocean oil is expensive, try going completely without and let us know how expensive that is. Which economy will you ruin, who will you starve, to do without?
Every tree planted reduced CO2. Are you advocating the planting trees, or just cutting off oil?
Alternative energy sources and new technology can decrease our dependency on oil, do you back them?
What is your concern?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Last time it was your boy-wonder, who lifted the sanctions against Russia [nytimes.com]...
Yeah.... but sanctions really only send a message in the moment you apply them... After that they're just blocking economic growth in both countries.
So slowing removing them when nobody is looking is smart move... Then you can reapply them, if it should ever come to that.
As long as Putin is around, it's probably not the last time.
Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... Sometimes it's better to just move along.
But right now, Cuba, Iran and North Korea doesn't really care much about what the US says.... because sort of armed conflict (in violation of the UN charter) the US can't really impose further sanctions. Cuba is pretty much the US holding an old grudge, lifting those sanctions ought to be a no-brainer... As for Iran and North Korea who both does have nuclear programs, there are pros/cons to maintaining and lifting sanctions. Maintaining them on North Korea, keeps the country crushed. Whereas Iran has oil that we'll buy either way, so maybe lifting sanctions on Iran would be worthwhile. Just maybe.
Yeah. You know it's almost as if the Russians didn't get a copy of the memo that says we are only permitted to use about 1/3 of the current known reserves.
You know, the memo that notes that if we don't leave the other 2/3 in the ground, we are COMPLETELY SCREWING OURSELVES and our little dogs too, on the climate front.
You know, sooner or later, our current "leaders" are going to be held liable for this criminally insane path they are steering us down with a greed-twisted grin on their faces. I can only hope it is sooner.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?