How does this whole oil biz work,in the US?

JoeCa1i

Well-Known Member
So bp is a british company?Why is it in the USA?Can't the US,boot bp,and bring in a US based company,to supply us with oil.Is their any US based companies,that can do a better job,then bp?Is the gulf,part of the US?Just cofused,why a foreign company,is drilling, US oil,then selling it back to us.
 

JoeCa1i

Well-Known Member
Why is a british company drilling usa's oil,then selling it back to us?Also why has'nt there been a state of emergency on this?Should'nt there be multiple fronts,on fixing this shit?
 

Banditt

Well-Known Member
Not sure how it works, but BP used to be Amoco in the US. I am assuming when BP bought out Amoco they also acquired all the land that Amoco owned for oil drilling.
 

abe23

Active Member
This is why the 'drill baby drill' crowd are fools...

If we increase our own production, where the hell do you think that oil goes? It ends up on the international market along with oil pumped from nigeria, venezuela, iran, russia etc. and then gets sold back to us at whatever the market value is. This idea that increasing exploration on our coasts will have any tangible impact on oil prices is completely ridiculous. I think the estimate was that it might reduce prices by 2 cents in thirty years or something like that. But yeah....drill, baby, drill.
 

fitch303

Well-Known Member
We should nationalize our oil companies and let the army corp of engineers handle the drilling, then sell the oil to Americans and take that profit to fund social programs (SS, medicare). Damn, did I really just suggest that?
 

kendothegreenwizard

Active Member
Institute for the analysis of global security
http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html

We pay about $3.00 for a gallon of gasoline at the service station. But the real price of gas is much higher and camouflaged by myriad direct and indirect costs associated with maintaining our oil economy. How much are you actually paying for gas? Take a closer look at the hidden bills footed by your taxes:

The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil..is estimated at $50 billion per year..The federal government subsidizes the oil industry with numerous tax breaks and government protection programs worth billions of dollars annually. These benefits are designed to ensure that domestic oil companies can compete with international producers and that gasoline remains cheap for American consumers.

Our dependency on oil from countries that are either politically unstable or at odds with the U.S. subjects the American economy to occasional supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth, which, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, have cost us more than $7 trillion present value dollars over the last 30 years. That is more than the cumulative cost of all of the wars fought by the U.S. since the Revolutionary War. The transfer of wealth to oil-producing countries - $1.16 trillion over the past thirty years - significantly increased our trade deficit. The Department of Energy estimates that each $1 billion of trade deficit costs America 27,000 jobs. Oil imports account for almost one-third of the total U.S. deficit and, hence, are a major contributor to unemployment.

The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil - deploying U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, patrolling its water and supplying military assistance to Middle East countries - is estimated at $50 billion per year, which adds additional dimes to each gallon of gasoline we purchase

Political instability in the region breeds wars and embroils the U.S. in costly military actions. The 1990-91 Gulf War broke out as a result of an oil dispute between Iraq and Kuwait. The cost to the international community reached almost $80 billion. The cost of the 2003 Iraq war and the following occupation of the country is estimated at $200 billion.

According to the National Defense Council Foundation, the economic penalties of America's oil dependence total $297.2 to $304.9 billion annually. If reflected at the gasoline pump, these “hidden costs” would raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to over $5.28. A fill-up would be over $105. To ensure access to the oil that fuels our economy, the U.S. is forced to maintain continuous presence in the Middle East. This presence has been a rallying cry for anti-Americanism and Islamic fundamentalism.

Fatwas (religious rulings) issued by Al-Qaeda in 1996 ("Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" and in 1998 ("Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders") emphasized the presence of U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's two holiest places. It was claimed that this was the greatest transgression against Muslims and that U.S. support of local regimes was unacceptable. Hence, the September 11 attacks were motivated by Al-Qaeda's desire to drive the "infidel armies" out of the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

"I swear by God, […] neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before […] all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad." The total dollar value of the attacks is rather difficult to quantify but it is certainly very high, surely in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars.

World competition for dwindling oil reserves will force the U.S. to increase its footprint in the region while oil generated wealth would continue to provide extremists the capital to market and implement their ideas worldwide. The unavoidable result is even more terrorism and instability. So when it comes down to the question of whether we can actually afford to shift away from petroleum-based energy system one should remember that the combined impact of wars, terrorism and environmental degradation is likely to send the price of oil right through the ceiling over the next two decades. Alternatively, the cost of emerging technologies is likely to decrease over time, as mass production and commercialization takes place.

Furthermore, if history is our guide, we can see that every industrial and technological revolution in history inspired an economic boom. Building an infrastructure for next-generation energies would generate millions of jobs around the world, and revolutionize the automobile industry as well as other industries.
Researching, developing, and introducing new transportation technologies that are cleaner, safer, and less economically destructive should, therefore, be our top national security and economic priority.


More information on the cost of gasoline:
National Defense Council Foundation report: the hidden cost of imported oil
Milton R. Copulos testimony in front of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the hidden cost of oil
International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA): The Real Price Of Gas
Oil Imports: An Overview and Update of Economic and Security Effects
Costs of Oil Dependence: A 2005 Update (prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Costs of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update (prepared by Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
The Gulf of Mexico is NOT American Land, They are NOT drilling on US soil. Japan, China and Korea all have drilling platforms in the area. The economic boost is ours due to Exclusive Economic Zone which extends 200 miles from the shores of countries and gives countries certain rights over the exploration and use of sea resources. It does not make the ocean part of the sovereign nation except for 12 miles from shore is considered territory of the USA. The Horizon platform is 40 miles from the coast. FWIW its not really BP's fault this happened, you see BP is just the entity that hired a company called Transocean to do most of the work, there were only 6 people out of the 125 that were employed by BP, 40 were contractors and the rest were Transocean. Halliburton Was preparing to finish cementing in the hole when the blowout happened.

The BOP is called a Blow Out Preventer and it is basically what caps the hole. It is designed to hydraulically seal off the hole in case of a blowout, but unfortunately their BOP was so heavily modified it did not work. even the backup did not work and the mechanical part was cemented so that it could not even be manipulated to work.

This may end up being the biggest ecological disaster ever caused by man to date. The price of shrimp should skyrocket. Bubba Gump stock should be shorted.
 

mrboots

Well-Known Member
So bp is a british company?Why is it in the USA?Can't the US,boot bp,and bring in a US based company,to supply us with oil.Is their any US based companies,that can do a better job,then bp?Is the gulf,part of the US?Just cofused,why a foreign company,is drilling, US oil,then selling it back to us.
it works both ways, bp is a british company, that oil rig was owend by transocean (a swiss company) bp was leasing it from them, but a lot of the work out there was preformed by halliburton (an american company). Big complicated deals like this are not as simple as it being one countries company. There are american oil companies like exxon and chevron that pump oil out of the north sea (british water) there are american companies that pump oil all over the world. There are american companies that do tons of work in the middle east. do you really think that some of these backwater places with tons of oil, like nigeria can develop an oil field by them selves? they need help from high tech western companies, so the united states being still somewhat of a free market economy, we let foriegn companies operate over here. and bp pays royalties to the feds for the rights to drill in the gulf. also, the idea of bp being a "british" company (or of exxon being an "american" company) isn't quite true either. bp may have started in england and be headquarted there, but bp is owned by investors from all over the world. You can buy bp shares on the nyse, and i just looked, almost 15 million shares have traded today so far, so alot of american investors and instituions own a piece of bp, just as a lot of foreigners own a piece of exxon. we live in a very big interconnected world its not as simple as where a where a company has their home office
 

mrboots

Well-Known Member
The price of shrimp should skyrocket. Bubba Gump stock should be shorted.[/QUOTE]

and you should go long dish soap, paper towels and swiffer sweepers, cause those fuckers have a huge mess to clean up down there
 
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