Obama Rejects New Atlantic Ocean Oil Drilling (usatoday.com)

mdsolar writes: The Obama administration will abandon its plan to allow new offshore oil drilling on the U.S. southeast coast, dealing a blow to petroleum companies that had hopes of tapping new reserves. The Interior Department is set to announce today that it will not auction off certain drilling rights for Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The reversal comes after environmentalists, coastal residents, and the U.S. military vocalized opposition to the plan. It also comes amid declining industry investment in new exploration and production activities as oil prices fell by about 70% since late 2014 -- although the industry is still seeking long-term investment opportunities under the assumption that oil prices will recover.

Comments

Obama's doing them a favor

[mspohr]

The oil companies are sitting on more proven reserves than can ever be pumped and burned if we are going to avoid catastrophic climate change. Even the Saudi's recognize it and that is why they are pumping as much of their oil as possible now (even at low prices) because they know it will be worth even less in the future. They're even trying to sell all of their oil assets now to some sucker who believes "oil will make a big comeback".
Most oil companies have oil assets on their books which will be worthless in the future (Google "stranded assets").
Coal is already done and finished and bankrupt.
Oil is next... it will take a while to go away (just like IBM and Microsoft are coasting on past glories) but there is no future growth in oil.
So, Obama is doing them a favor by preventing them from throwing money at Arctic drilling and Atlantic coast drilling. They should thank him (and look for another business opportunity).