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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (6677)	8/15/2001 10:33:33 AM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

Yes, agreed, and now a word from the media, mostly summary and background but useful perhaps for a recap. (Chicago Tribune) Technology, propelled by the nation's thirst for more oil and gas, has pushed oil companies farther into the central and western Gulf of Mexico in an effort to plumb waters more than 7,000 feet deep. Record oil-industry profits from high gasoline prices the past two years have helped the big oil companies amass huge capital budgets for exploration. Couple those with generous incentives offered by the Bush administration's energy plan, and the country appears to be poised for a drilling binge of epic proportions. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the place the oil industry may drill next. The Bush administration and the oil industry won a victory in the House of Representatives recently: approval of the administration's proposal to allow oil and gas exploration on a 2,000-acre swath of the wildlife refuge. While the measure faces uncertain prospects in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the oil industry is pushing ahead with other ambitious plans. In particular, oil companies are looking to the eastern Gulf of Mexico, where, over the protests of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and environmentalists, a 1.47 million-acre stretch of water could be leased for drilling in December. In fact, oil and gas companies more than doubled their capital spending in North America last year. Exploration activity jumped 72% according to the Andersen consulting group. In the rest of the world, exploration increased only 1%. Underlying this push for new close-to-home oil sources were the chronic supply shortages of the past two years, when $30-a-barrel oil, $2.50-a-gallon gasoline and record natural gas prices incited consumer uproar. Now, only two months later, the energy crisis appears, by some measures, to be over. The sudden respite from the energy crunch has some experts rethinking long-term energy needs. On balance, most believe that it's prudent to mount an exploration push now, while prices are stable, to plan for future supply in the notoriously cyclical energy business. They are concerned that the United States now is importing 60% of its oil, and suggest that the country is becoming more vulnerable to potential supply disruptions from unrest in the Middle East. But some experts are arguing for moderation as well - that while it may be wise to ensure future supply and less dependence on foreign oil, it is not necessary to plop down oil and gas wells in the Great Lakes, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, off the coast of Florida and in other environmentally sensitive areas. Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California's Energy Institute, argues that drilling for more domestic oil would have a negligible impact on the U.S. gasoline supply. More directly to blame for the past year's supply shocks, many experts contend, are pipeline disruptions and the complicated logistics of making and distributing federally required "boutique" gasoline blends for various markets. Substantial quantities of natural gas are available to meet the need on Alaska's North Slope and in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, sites where oil drilling is already occurring and which stir less environmental controversy than the wildlife refuge. BP, operator of the Prudhoe Bay field, estimates there are 47 trillion cubic feet of natural gas stranded underground, with no place to go for lack of a pipeline. Ed Kelly, director of research for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, cited the rapid depletion of natural gas wells and the pressure of an economic recovery on supply as reasons to begin additional drilling for natural gas now. "When the economy rebounds, natural gas supplies will be tighter and prices will go up," said Kelly, who believes the proposed drilling in the wildlife refuge could be done in an environmentally sound manner.