Sale Of Arctic Oil Leases Goes Bust - Trumponomics Fails Its First Test—Just Seven Bids, $1.2 Million
Good news for the environment. Bad news for Trump/GOP tax cuts:
The federal oil-lease sale promoted as the largest ever in Alaska’s Arctic Reserve sold only seven tracts, or 0.8% of the 900 tracts offered, undercutting Republican arguments that they can help pay for their proposed $1.5 trillion tax cuts for the wealthy by selling oil leases in the Alaskan wilderness.
h seettps://www.dcreport.org/2017/12/07/sale-of-arctic-oil-leases-goes-bust
Curb your enthusiasm for this one folks:
The Working Class To Republicans: ‘We’re Not As Stupid As You Think’
A recent Quinnipiac survey found that fewer than 1 in 6 Americans expect their taxes to be reduced while more than twice that many expect their taxes to go up.
So more than one third of Americans think their taxes will go up, which means almost two thirds of Americans are dumber than rocks. So that should be considered progress? I'm gonna have to smoke my night time nugget of Indica Cali Kush and think that over.
https://www.dcreport.org/2017/12/04/the-working-class-to-republicans-wer...
Comments
So that's how they were able to add this to the bill
I was wondering how this could possibly be able to be included in it. This is a bit of good news. I don't understand why oil companies want to take a risk of drilling in the artic. It's got to be more expensive to drill there. Besides, aren't there a lot of places that they have bought and are waiting to drill?
The reason why Trump reduced the two monuments was so Utah's politicians could sell the oil and coal. The coal is located in the most beautiful parts of the Grand Staircase monument.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
They don't.
They don't. Exploring, drilling, and then transporting hydrocarbons in the Arctic is difficult, dangerous, and expensive.
Just another load of congressional BS, showing yet again that they don't have a clue what they're doing.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
I'm not following you
I thought that oil companies have been wanting to drill there for a long time, but it was a protected area?
Please explain what you mean. They are and have been buying land up there for awhile. For some reason I thought that they were going to be drilling out in the water.
I wonder if us regular joes would be able to get a sweat heart deal for the land. Look at how much they would have to spend for this to meat the budget.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Arctic drilling
In order for the oil companies to commit major $$ and time to a program of exploring and exploiting Arctic lands in Alaska, they would have to think it worth their while, financially. From what I can see, there are a couple of reasons why they might be concentrating their efforts elsewhere at present.
We don't actually know the amount of recoverable hydrocarbons that are under the Arctic refuge, and we don't know exactly where it's located. "Recoverable" = we can get to it and remove it. So the oil companies would be investing a lot of money in high-intensity projects with a high degree of difficulty and uncertainty as to how much they would profit from it. In addition, the international oil markets at present aren't conducive to the kind of profit they want.
Back in the '60s when the Alaskan oil fields were discovered, the oil execs' eyes got as big as dinner plates. It was an exciting new frontier. Dollar signs in the sky in neon lights. But it hasn't turned out the way they expected. One problem after the other, and after 50 years not that much in $$$ to show for their efforts. Most of the potential oil and gas production is still in the ground.
It could be that the oil companies are playing the long game, biding their time until the markets change and the political climate is more supportive. Heck, if they wait long enough, once the polar ice cap is gone, presumably it would be easier and less expensive to drill. (Only partly sarcastic there.)
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Moreover, only a few years ago
as I'm certain you're aware, one of the biggest oil corporations essentially proved (photos of equipment failing in heavy seas) that they do not have the technology to operate in the Arctic -- not least because it does not exist.
In addition, no possible equipment or technology exists to "clean up" the inevitable spills.
That's no problem for these unaccountable groups. They all publicly deny what is now essentially irreversible climate change, but are privately very aware that it is actual and (as we observe here and in Utah) want to act immediately to take whatever can be taken while there's still someone to sell it to.
Next: mining for uranium in the Grand Canyon area where, when radioactive waste reaches the river, it will be carried downstream irreversibly.
Congress is stuck in the early 20th century
and digging down further. They all deserve to be fired.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Maybe they should have checked with Royal Dutch Shell...
Only a few years ago their heavily protested exploratory drilling was halted...
I didn't think the "Plan" was going to work...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5VZjT0JE70]
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
From the few seconds I could stand to listen to Trump's speech
about the Utah national monuments, it seemed like he was turning over decision making about the land to the state of Utah. So I wonder if that means the people of Utah would be able to stop the destruction.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Being one of the Sagebrush Rebellion States...
We can be sure of how that will go...
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Good grief.
Reading that report I can't help but think how many unbelievable immoral people are in the Congress/Senate. Totally bought and paid for.
Corrupt and inept
Completely corrupted and totally inept.
(The latter may be their saving grace, since it gives us a path to revolution, if it doesn't destroy the human race first.)
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Kudos To Every Comment
Having coffee and getting ready for my morning Sativa Wake & Bake.
After reading through the comments it occurred to me that this was a big fuck you to the entire Trump administration and the GOP. The amount they collectively spent is less than pocket change.
How could so many oil companies collectively bid such a pittance?
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Answer? They want their money for nuthin’ and their ......
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Nothing like a 4 BILLION
Dollar mostly dry hole that Shell Oil dug to take the bloom off the arctic summer flower. Lose half the year to ice, savaged by mosquitos the rest of the time all the while spending several million a day.
No profit
There's cheap (to produce) oil and expensive oil. All cheap oil is conventional oil, all unconventional oil is expensive, some conventional oil is expensive. None of this considers the environmental impacts.
There is less productive capacity for cheap oil all the time - the fields are depleting and good prospects aren't being discovered. There is a lot of capacity for unconventional oil, but the economy won't function at $100+ per barrel. Demand collapses, the price collapses, the unconventional (for example fracked and deep water) oil shuts down in an orderly fashion. Wells may continue operating to minimize losses, which adds to the cheap oil production to meet demand at the lower price. As time goes on you would have an unstable market oscillating between low and sky-high prices. If electric vehicles were to enter the market at a rate similar to depletion of cheap oil, there might never be enough demand to develop unconventional oil again.
Fracked wells are financed with 10 year junk bonds. A typical fracked oil well (gas is even faster) lasts 24 months, a great well might last 48 months. How to service the debt? You borrow more money and drill a second well that has to service the debt on two wells. And so on. There is very little money in fracking long term, though the short term yields well. There is no money at all at $60 per barrel. You operate the wells to service the debt as long as you can. For a while they were drilling new wells but capping them before fracking them, now they aren't even doing that. The real money was in trading the oil leases.
Arctic oil is expensive. There is still no way to bring the natural gas to market, though as the Arctic melts out they might be able to operate LNG tankers. Maybe. There is a glut of expensive oil, no reason to bid for more leases. So I can't say I'm surprised the auctions failed.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone