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Gold/Mining/Energy : coastal caribbean (cco@) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edwin S. Fujinaka who wrote (1199)	12/28/1999 9:40:00 AM
From: Tom Frederick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4686

Ed, "How this got turned into a negative is a total mystery to me." In a word, Exxon Valdez. The reality of what kind of damage a large oil spill can do was burned into American minds over and over again with that spill. Anything that can conjure up another potential disaster like that is going to be attacked as irresponsible and driven by greed according to the environmentalists. Those environmentalists who will rail against any offshore drilling will also drive their cars with nice new radial tires to the meetings where they drink out of plastic cups, in a heated building with a nice shingle roof while they make calls to the other members on a plastic phone. I don't know where they think all these things come from, but oil will be part of our lives for some time to come. I agree that responsible development is vitally important and environmental issues need to be addressed and monitored. However, all out bans on drilling and development of oil are turning a blind eye to the daily reality of our lives in the modern world. I saw a story on the Discovery Channel recently where an offshore rig was coming to the end of it's life cycle with NO accidents in it's entire operation. I believe it was on line for about 15 years and it was a Canadian operation. So it can be done if the project is planned with critical safety plans in place. Your concept of the Fed buying it as a U.S. reserve for future use is the best one yet. Does anyone on the Fed level know about this reserve? If there were a new study on the possible size of the reserve and the results of the study where published in key journals and at least one major U.S. paper that could get some very high level attention. Send a copy of the articles to the Energy Department, Department of Defense, Secretary of the Interior, and any other department that could benefit from the establishment of a safely stored, but very large U.S. reserve. I wouldn't be surprised if CCO got a phone call within 48 hours of an article like circulating around Washington featuring details on the "billions of barrels of untapped oil" in U.S. territory. I could see a deal where the Fed pays CCO for the oil in a quiet settlement and the U.S. then just sits on it knowing they have a very big ace to play should the need arise. It would add a significant edge to negotiations on oil production. The other idea would be to sell the leases to another major player and let THEM sit on it until it becomes of vital need to our economic interests. Either way, we'd end up with a much better position than we have now! Tom F.