UPPERWEATHER.COM _{-Meteorological Musings}

It is always quite interesting to check the internets for pages that link back to this one. I recently wrote a piece about why oil companies are not drilling on acres that they have leased. It turned out to be the most linked to article that I have ever had. That makes a body feel good.

The first link-back was from a forum, that said my article was a "reasonable answer to" this question:

Mac-7 wrote:

"Suppose there isn't very much oil on those lands? It would not make sense to put up derricks if they weren't going to get oil there.

But since the Democrats make such a fuss about those leases I wonder what their guess is why the oil companies are not pumping the oil you think is down there?"

This was very nice. I feel like I am smart all of a sudden. Mac-7 even responded with:

Thanks for that information.

I think leasing land that turns out to not have oil is a risk that oil companies are used to making.

Oil men are gamblers at heart and used to taking chances.

But since Democrats and greens are implying a sinister motive for not collecting all the oil they say is on those leases why not sell the oil companies leases offshore?

If no drilling and no harm has been done to the current leases it would be foolish for the greens not to take advantage of the stupid oil companies who buy leases they don't use.

What are the greens afraid of?

Well, the greens are afraid to do anything that might provide energy. They will not be happy until we all live in grass huts, and walk everywhere. Then Corruption Control had to chime in:

#1. The source is a blog which has no credibility. #2. I didn't spend hours looking for the authors name but i did read the article and saw no name attached to the article. #3. Cheaper to hold the lease than drill?? that is nonsense if not enough oil to be feasable (sic) let the lease go and stop wasting money.

#1. He later links to another blog (dailymail) and calls it fact that was done by an expert.

#2. My name and credentials are clearly on the ABOUT page that you will find a link to at the top.

#3. I am sure they would let the lease go if they could. Usually they call it a lease for a reason.

The next link-back was from a forum, that quoted this from my article:

any smart business would go around buying these leases, for a minimum of $26,700 for 670 acres (which is the minimum size), and then never using them?

Then went said this:

This made me laugh. OOOooh! $26,700! I bet Exxon would have a hell of a time scrapping together that money. $26,700 is the freaking ANNUAL rate, which means that you are talking about $40 a acre annually or about $3.33 a month per acre. This for a company that just made a profit of $39.5 BILLION. That's PROFIT not operating expenses.

So, doing some quick math, just the PROFIT that ONE company makes, they could lease about 11.9 BILLION acres of land. Since the surface of the United States is about 2.3 billion acres they could easily lease the entire country 5 times over. I am sure that there are some connies (sic) that would like to see that happen.

THAT is how they can afford to lease land and then not use it.

I guess I should not have thrown that figure out. It may be a bit misleading. that is just for the lease of the land. Once you throw in fees, licenses, research and operating costs, it is millions per acre.

The oil companies are not going to throw that away lightly.

They would still have to spend outrageous amounts of money to actually extract the oil. The government needs to let them DRILL!!

laissez faire