Let's say there was some exogenous event like an earthquake and it took out 10% of the total oil production inside the US. Are we saying that it should never be rebuilt? I really need to understand, beyond the polemics, what the real threshold of the anti drilling people is. If it takes 7 years to come on line? 4? 12? Because as noted elsewhere, high prices are an immediate driver for NEVER maintaining one's own national oil infrastructure. The Iranians have not, since 1979. The Iraqis never did, since 1980. Why should they? Why should they invest a dime if the price keeps going up? And they didn't have the money to do it when the prices were $7 a barrel.

So which is it? If you want to curtail supply externally in order to force some other thing to occur, like famine driven research into alternative energy, then why not simply ration all supplies at the downstream end of the pipe, not the supply side. If you want people to use less, MAKE them use less. Force them to use less.

Excellent analysis, Andrew. This should be the text of a Democratic talking point and spoken over and over in rebuttal to Republican nonsense about drill here, drill now, pay less.

Their 20% drop in production is directly the result of terrorism and tribal warfare. Pipelines are getting blown up every day. Thousands have been killed. A solution only a radical leftist blogger could love.

I read receintly that US oil companies, including Exxon, are sitting on 100s of millions of acres of Federal lease options on land with proven reserves right now that they're not drilling because production costs in the US are still too high compared to the price of crude.

If that's true, then the Bush administrations attempt to resurect offshore drilling is nothing but a last minute givaway to their biggest contributors before they get kicked out of office.

If that's true, then the Bush administrations attempt to resurect offshore drilling is nothing but a last minute givaway to their biggest contributors before they get kicked out of office.

Bingo. The Republicans are in a hair-on-fire hurry to open up new areas for exploration so that the Bush administration will be the one that cuts the lease deals. Bush would give the oil companies carte blanche to screw our eyes out, and Exxon wants that very badly.

As an added benefit to the oil companies, news that the offshore drilling ban had been lifted would probably throw cold water on investor enthusiasm for alternative energy.

My Grandfather, who went to his grave a card carrying member of the Wobblies, used to tell me that the republicans were the party of the rich, the privileged and the corporations and that they were out to fuck the working man. In the 30 some odd years since he passed from this life they have done nothing to prove him wrong. This is just another example of what he always told me.

I agree, and add that I still think the longer goal is to have the oil pumping because even if the green nuts take over here, Big Oil can sell it to India and China, until we all choke. But, no matter, the 401(k) will be flush!

Okay, you guys, let's build offshore platforms for "tidal energy" or wave or current energy, call it what you will. Perhaps we can't build them in exactly the same spots as our offshore oil platforms would be... But let's build the natural-energy, water-energy platforms instead.

By the end of the roughly 15-year period, we probably would get the same amount of energy. The oil companies know how to build platforms and such. Let them do it. Encourage them. That must be our direction.

>let's build offshore platforms for "tidal energy" or ...

I've often wondered if the folks who've objected to these kinds of platforms were the ones who objected to oil drilling before - but not now. Hate it until you want it.

Of course, OTEC & related aren't oil (obviously), but I think the debate for many centers more on appearance than anything else.

We can build "platforms" and such for water energy, but then, when hurricanes delete those platforms, no oil will leak.

Etrigone, my Greek friend, that is the point. PLUS! These platforms will not be producing oil, oil that winds up poluting and killing, further downstream in the energy utilisation process.

I know it's chic these days to hate 'big corporations' and their 'windfall profits', but I sure as hell wouldn't want to work for some schlub company, with no money. Think about that while your pounding away on your petroleum based keyboard. Off shore drilling won't lower prices, but as part of a serious overall energy plan that includes alternative and nuclear, it could have a stablizing effect on the markets. Perception and fear drive the energy markets to a large extent. Disagree? Every time someone has a bad hair day in the Middle East, oil spikes higher, on nothing more than fear alone. Politicizing the energy crisis; and it IS a crisis; does nothing to help solve the problem. Neither does whining about 'windfall profits'. This is capitalist America right; Not communist Cuba?

Maybe we will have to drill in the presently banned areas eventually, but we know it won't help in the short term. I think a little patience might pay off if we can avoid having the new leases written by an administration that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the oil companies. Bush would give the oil companies the best deal possible at the expense of the rest of the country.

If you really are worried about the price of oil, you might consider the possibility that McCain might be as much in the oil companies' pocket as Bush.

That oil sounds like future quarters of record profits when oil gets even more scarce, it's not like our demand for oil is going to end in 5 or 10 years. And it doesn't seem like any "demand destruction" that occurs will be long-lived to me. There will be demand for that oil. Plus technology might even improve a bit more in the future to enhance the % they recover (maybe even more cheaply?) when the price of oil goes even higher than it is now.

So with record profits now, why the panic? Must be getting a real sweetheart deal on those leases? Low royalties maybe? It doesn't seem like we should be in any hurry to give it away - until they pump it belongs to you and me, right?