Good point. We should get everyone on board before we go hog wild. But the concept is great.

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If we want southern oil, we need to kiss Hugo Chavez ass!

Does anyone else find it amazing how we keep finding more and more oil fields?? Personally, I think that there's a whole lot more oil out there than anyone ever imagined, it's just a matter of getting it out of the ground and into production. Every time I hear the panic-stricken cries of "we're running out of oil", I hear the commodities brokers cackling in glee.

Fixed.

Now, they found a new field, but where is the other end of the pocket, and will their straw get in faster than ours?

I had the opportunity to talk to an exec from one of the big oil companies many years ago (I was filling in for vacations at a related company). Big mouthed me asked him the question of why we were so interested in foreign oil when we had plenty. He replied that believe-it-or-not, it was vastly cheaper to get it over there and transport it here than to go so far under the ocean in the Gulf.
Now we have better technology, but you still have to get it up to the surface. That means pipe and mud. Tons of mud, pumped. Transported with boats. And all the equipment that goes along has to be first transported to the rig site. The site has to have round the clock crews coming and going 2 weeks on and two weeks off so there are fresh crews at all times.
I'm wondering if the cost of transportation is going to take a big chunk out of profits this time.
The oil in the middle east is virtually right underneath the ground. Now there are pipe lines all over Europe. So the thing that makes me happy is there might be local boat captains and crews, rig workers, and engineers, cooks, etcetera who make some decent money for the duration of the job.
BUt don't let that boom 5 years from now fool you. We need alternative resources. And we need them yesterday.

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Do we??? Seriously, with the number of new oil fields we keep finding, is oil really so rare and hard to find?? There's no doubt that there's easy to access oil and hard to access oil, but the number of known fields seems to be growing all the time. If we discover that there's enough oil out there to supply us with all of our energy needs for the next 50 years, do we really need to find alternative energy sources??

What will we do in 50 years? That kind of thinking got us into this mess. Use the oil, but prepare. Boy Scouts: "Be Prepared!"

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But "prepared" has to be reasonable...

Chastity belts would avert abortions and sexual disease, but it's not reasonable (although I'm sure you'd find dissent )...

There's a difference between "being prepared" and "being prepared to a state of paranoia"...

Your logic is up there with a multi-millionaire living on raman noodles and a basement apartment "just in case"...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I agree salty we should be looking at alternatives for energy, but this big push by government is a just another case of big brother trying to scare the bejeezus out of everyone so they go along with anothe huge tax increase to satify the governments need for our money.

Let the industry's who know how to do this kind of R & D move forward and keep government at bay!

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Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

Donald Trump