I work in offshore oil patch and the people in E&P companies that I talk to all say that if the moratorium on US drilling were lifted tomorrow, it would make no difference because there are literally dozens and dozens of leases held by E&Ps in the US that they can't drill right now because they don't have the equipment or the people to do it.
Of course, they aren't going to object too loudly because it will guarantee them many more boom years into the future trying to drill out everything.
On a personal note, opening up all of the US offshore would probably mean my company could grow ten-fold... the only problem is that we are already short on staff and have had some nice 6-figure jobs open for two or more years already... we are literally recruiting all over the world: Europe (esp. England), India, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, etc., we even have an Iraqi and an Iranian working together side-by-side!
Jim |
