One of the big issues coming up in the election is the matter of sending expedition teams off various coasts in the United States to find out if there's any oil out there to drill for and to invariably decrease our need for "foreign oil." Well, let me speak on this for a minute.
Many people might expect me to go the way of the environmentalist and argue about how oil rigs will end up polluting the atmosphere and make our beaches and coastal areas unsightly when you look out and there's this massive oil rig staring right back at you. However, although those are decent reasons to not allow for the drilling of oil offshore, I have different reasons for my desire to not see oil drilled offshore.
First off, the argument that we will reduce our dependence on foreign oil is actually misleading. Oil is a global commodity traded at a global price. The value of the dollar is really the only thing that affects the price for American consumers differently than that of people in other countries. Also, it has been stated in the CIA World Fact Book (something you can look up online) that in 2004, the United States was exporting 1,048,000 barrels of oil PER DAY. I thought we were still looking to reduce our dependence on foreign oil back then. So why were we exporting it to other locations? I would also like to say that the fact that other nations' data has been updated in more recent years while the United States information has remained stagnant. Conspiracy? Perhaps...
Secondly, it will take years for the oil rigs to actually get set up and start drilling. Exploration teams have to first be sent in to see if there is actually any oil beneath the surface off the various coasts. If they manage to find a bed of oil big enough to exploit, they'll mark it and send a rig out to begin drilling. But rigs take two years to manufacture from order to completion (as I saw on a TV special, I believe either on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel). Naturally, oil companies don't have spare rigs sitting around waiting for oil to be discovered. That would take expenses to maintain and they would have to have land to store the rigs. After the rig is built, it has to be shipped from the construction yard to the location of the drilling. Moving the rigs overland is hard enough, but the rig also doubles as a craft that can move out into the water after it is sent there. So, the rig is also using gasoline to move into position. Sometimes places where the explorers thought there was a lot of oil actually had less oil than was expected, which can be equally infuriating to both producers and consumers. So not only will it take years to actually get the oil manufacturing infrastructure in place, it might not actually yield any significant results.
Thirdly, since we have no nationalized oil industry there is no way to ensure that the oil that is drilled out of the ground will actually stay in the United States. As stated in the first reason, oil is a global commodity. The oil we drill in the United States can just as easily be shipped out to foreign nations as it would be to keep it in the United States. It also doesn't matter if the oil is drilled off the coast of California or in the desert sands of Saudi Arabia, the price for each barrel of oil will be the same. Oil companies do have a goal of trying to minimize costs while maximizing revenues (as they push into our heads during accounting all the time) if they can still drill oil out of the ground for the (made up) price of $20 per barrel, why not go ahead and ship it to Vietnam or China or Japan to make $129 per barrel? Besides, the companies who drill oil are not always the companies who sell gasoline. Dutch Royal Shell Company is one of the rare companies that does both. Exxon-Mobile recently said it was looking to get out of the gasoline-selling industry and focus more specifically on drilling and the sale of petroleum. As I stated before, if it's going to cost the same to drill a barrel of oil from the United States as it is from Saudi Arabia, there's no national loyalty to whom they sell it to. If America nationalizes its oil industry and eliminates corporate national disloyalty, then I think we could drill for oil and force for it to go to American consumers.
Fourthly, the oil companies keep changing their story as to why the price of fuels are so high. Shortly before Katrina, the oil companies were complaining that the reason for the gas price hikes were due to the lack of refineries in the United States. Since then, I've heard no progress being made in the construction of refinery sites in the United States. Perhaps I didn't keep my ear to the ground on that one, but many were at least put out of commission when Katrina hit the area. Now the oil companies are complaining about supply and demand when there are oil producing nations that are not producing at full capacity (and are able to do so, as they claim, if they had a buyer for the oil). So if we're not exhausting the oil that can currently be produced, then why do we need to find new sources of oil? Also, in California specifically, we have lowered our demand for oil over the past two years, yet we have not seen a corresponding decrease in the price of gasoline in the state. It's still up from where the price was two years ago.
I wrote on a forum not too long ago that the statement that drilling for oil off the coast of the United States will lead to less dependence on foreign oil (thus leading to a decrease in price) is either ignorant or purposefully misleading. As I have stated, oil is globally traded on an open market not guaranteeing where it comes from. The rigs will also take years to be put into place so the benefits from offshore drilling will not be felt for a while (definitely contrary to the "immediate" relief that Americans would like). Also, since corporations have no national loyalty, there is absolutely no guarantee that the oil drilled in the United States will stay in the United States. It's just about as likely as a California State Quarter with Yosemite on the back will stay in California its entire life. I say if we want to drill off the coast we either need to nationalize our oil industry or else we need to have a written guarantee by the corporations that would be exploring for oil off the coasts that the oil will be sold domestically at a reduced market price so that way we can actually "solve" the problem of higher gas prices and our "reliance" on foreign oil.
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