OPEC increased daily production quotas by 1.9% or 500,000 Barrels a day.
While higher output is intended to ease prices, oil climbed near an all-time high in New York on concern that rising demand will soak up all that producers can pump. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said consumption in the fourth quarter, the period of highest demand each year, will exceed the third quarter by more than 2 million barrels. The International Energy Agency expects global oil demand to rise 2.2 percent this year.
“Any additional oil will have little effect on prices,” said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president at Refco Energy Markets in New York. “Issues other than current supply are driving the market. There is very little OPEC can do.”
ANWR production is estimated to reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025.
So Congrats to the Senate which just passed a bill that will do nothing about the price of oil, nothing to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources, nothing to reduce the impact of carbon emssions, nothing to preserve a unique ecosystem, but will help a small select businesses involved in the extraction of the oil.
That’s doing the people’s business. It’s just a question of which people’s businsess is being done.
The only pointless act is leaving oil in the ground where it is not doing anyone a lick of good.
And let’s not forget that the price rose above 57 bucks too. Drilling in Alaska has nothing to do with lowering the price at the pump. The price will never significantly go down again, now that the economy as adjusted to higher rates.
Wow, that’s deep anonymous. Except the argument isn’t over whether to drill or not in isolation, it is in a specific context of whether the environmental effects of drilling outweigh the benefits of the oil extracted. Given there are no large scale benefits of drilling, I’m at a loss as to why one would want to introduce development into a fragile and rare ecoystem.
ANWR itself is larger than a lot of states. I would hardly call that, “Rare.”
I think the significance of this vote is more political — tilting politics away from over aggressive environmentalism — than substantive. ANWR has had more to do with political muscle than anything.
Also, I think the fall of the dollar is probably the variable we need to be looking at when discussing the price of oil. Gasoline taxes and over-regulation of the US market plays a huge role once the oil is refined.
===ANWR itself is larger than a lot of states. I would hardly call that, “Rare
If it is the only undisturbed ecosystem of that type that would indeed be rare.
–I think the significance of this vote is more political — tilting politics away from over aggressive environmentalism
How is it overly aggressive to protect an ecoystem that is fragile and the only example left when the oil pulled out is inconsequential?
—== think the fall of the dollar is probably the variable we need to be looking at when discussing the price of oil. Gasoline taxes and over-regulation of the US market plays a huge role once the oil is refined.
Gas taxes in the US are relatively low, but over-regulation is a political problem because of the Midwest’s insistence on ethanol. If the federal government required 3 classes of gasoline in terms of standards one could lower the price of gasoline when refineries are tight–but that isn’t the problem right now.
Overall the industry gets away with a remarkable level of pollution. In Metro-East one of the Premcor facilities that was closed down essentially leaked gas into water table and to this day there are gas buildups in people’s basements. Beyond that the Texas refineries are some of the worst polluters in the nation. “Voluntary compliance” and shields against public notice of ‘release events’ have led to serious air quality problems in the area of Port Arthur.
Even the Texas Lege under Republican control have been strengthening the enforcement since Bush left. If there is an industry that gets away with more than refineries, it’s hard to imagine who that is.
US gas taxes being relatively low — I guess that’s cross national comparison — is irrelavent to my point. Gas taxes make up a larger portion of gasoline prices than the cost of crude oil is what I’m trying to get across.
The vast number of formulas and the shortages caused by the annual shift from winter gas to summer gas makes this argument and annual event.
As far as “pristine” and “fragile” go, those are normative descriptions. If we’re turning ANWR into the Caspian Sea, then I’m on your side. But, I don’t think any serious person is going to argue that’s what will occur — or anything close to it.
I can’t speak to the specific refinery issue, but there is laundry list of civil court and regulatory abuses of environmental regulation. People, with no intent to wreck ecosystems have been stripped of their property rights, other examples exist where people have been jailed. Development of domestic energy resources and the use of nuclear power have been proven nearly impossible.
Environmental groups, the courts, and the bureaucracy need to be reigned in. They don’t need to be rolled because they play an important role in the system, but they need their wings clipped.
==Gas taxes make up a larger portion of gasoline prices than the cost of crude oil is what I’m trying to get across.
That’s not true: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/primer_on_gasoline_prices/html/petbro.html
Even the API says that the taxes are significant, but not the biggest single component.
And as the barrel price goes up, this becomes less true.
The better question for gas taxes is does it pay for the infrastructure and related costs of driving. Given gas taxes barely would cover just infrastructure, if that, the overall costs of gas aren’t captured by the most effective means (and best in terms of the market) of capturing those costs.
And we should simplify the number of markets–even with a more expensive process across many places, fewer blends would result in savings.
Fragile isn’t a normative description when discussing an ecoystem–especially an ecosystem that is tundra. Tundra can’t take the same stress that other ecosystems can often absorb because it is dependent upon not being disturbed–ironically much like a desert ecosystem.
When USGS looked at the area in question, the impact of the footprint and the infrastructure was determined to be potentially a problem–it isn’t just an area where the species exist, but where they calve.
http://alaska.usgs.gov/BSR-2002/usgs-brd-bsr-2002-001.html
That risk might be more palatable if there was enough oil projected to make a significant impact on oil supplies. There isn’t though and given that risk is present, why bother?
The rest will be a part of our continuing debate, but aren’t without merit, though we’d disagree on the relative impact.
“That’s not true: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/primer_on_gasoline_prices/html/petbro.html
Even the API says that the taxes are significant, but not the biggest single component.
And as the barrel price goes up, this becomes less true.
The better question for gas taxes is does it pay for the infrastructure and related costs of driving. Given gas taxes barely would cover just infrastructure, if that, the overall costs of gas aren’t captured by the most effective means (and best in terms of the market) of capturing those costs.”
Well, yes and no. In the late 90’s gas taxes took up about $.43 of a gallon a gas while drilling for crude took up $.34.
I’ve seen figures as high as 54% of the price at the pump being eaten up by taxes… I would imagine that includes CIT and stuff like that paid by the oil co. and the station (I’m making a wild guess here because that 54% figure seems really high).
Again, this would go back to the value of the dollar. We are talking real vs. relative dollar amounts. As the dollar sinks and crude oil prices rise, the relative cost of crude goes up. We’ve gone from a dollar in 2002 worth 1.1 Euros to .75 Euros today. I guess the question would be, are we comparing apples to apples?