Guest “I couldn’t make this sort of schist up if I was trying” by David Middleton
Interior Department cancels offshore oil and gas leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico
By Ella Nilsen and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Thu May 12, 2022
CNN — The Biden administration announced Wednesday it would cancel three upcoming offshore oil and gas leases – two in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska – over a lack of interest and delays.
[…]
However, Biden officials have also emphasized the need for more domestic oil production to combat high gasoline prices, which have angered the public and inflamed inflation.
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The administration’s decision was also criticized by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who argued that the cancellation and the administration’s failure to use the Defense Production Act or other means to compel US energy companies to produce more sends a “mixed message” as the US seeks to assist Europe with eliminating its reliance on Russian energy amid the war in Ukraine.
“I get the reason for the cancellation announced today was concerns about climate. That’s the reason. And we ought to be concerned about climate,” Kaine said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday. “But it strikes me if we’re the largest energy producer in the world, and we know that at least transitionally, our European allies need energy from sources other than Russia, that us going to Saudi Arabia and saying, ‘Please, produce more energy,’ when we’re not willing to do it ourselves – I just don’t get it.”
Kaine said it does not appear that the administration has a “coherent strategy” when it comes to trying to supplant Russian energy and questioned whether the decision had been discussed across federal agencies.
CNN
When Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) is the voice of reason it must be a sign of the End Times…
While I appreciate Senator Kaine’s sentiments, using the “Defense Production Act… to compel US energy companies to produce more” oil & gas would be about as useful as mammary glands on a bull. At $106/bbl and natural gas at $7.70/mcf, US oil companies are producing as much oil & gas as we can. No amount of compelling can quickly increase production. It takes years of investment to significantly increase production.
Pressure mounts on Biden to use Defense Production Act, but it’s not a “magic wand”
Lily Jamali
Mar 14, 2022President Joe Biden is facing pressure to invoke the Defense Production Act to boost the domestic production of oil and gas.
Those calls are coming from members on both sides of the aisle in Congress and follow the administration’s ban on Russian oil and other energy imports announced last week.
[…]
“The DPA gives the president extraordinary powers,” said Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Still, “it doesn’t give him a magic wand.”
There’s no switch that the president or anyone else can flip to boost energy production overnight, Gordon said.
“No proclamation can make that happen faster than it’s physically possible. He doesn’t have the power to suspend the laws of physics.”
[…]
[T]hat production has to go through, yes, the supply chain. And if there’s anything the pandemic has taught us, said Julie Swann, professor and department head of industrial and systems engineering at North Carolina State University, it’s this: “It takes a long time to make supply chains resilient, including for oil and gas.”
[…]
Marketplace
While Biden could eliminate all of the barriers his maladministration has thrown up in the path of US oil & gas producers, he can’t fix this, not even with his flatulent bloviations…
SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES ARE HITTING THE OIL AND NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY TOO
BY JEFF ESHELMAN MAR. 16, 2022As the price of oil sits at record highs, consumers and businesses are struggling under the increasing burden of rising energy costs. One of the world’s most powerful tactics against rising energy costs is secure, affordable, reliable American oil and natural gas production, and as such the industry is doing all it can to ramp up domestic production.
The United States is a global leader in oil and natural gas production, and this should be encouraged, but there are significant challenges to meet the calls for immediate action.
America’s oil and natural gas companies stand ready for more responsible energy production here at home, for our nation and our worldwide allies. It won’t be immediate, but now is the time to create solutions that get the nation back on track to energy and national security.
Here are a few of the multitude of factors at play impeding an immediate response from industry:
Oil and natural gas producers face the same supply chain and workforce issues that all industries across the country are also facing.
The impacts from the pandemic have been felt by everyone and the oil and gas industry is no exception to that. There are currently months-long delays on securing the steel pipe and casing needed for drilling. Not only can a well not be drilled without adequate pipe, but the steel casing is a critical component to prevent environmental impacts.
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It’s not just materials to drill that have become harder to acquire. The transportation sector has been hit especially hard by workforce shortages and increased fuel prices.
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Fuel costs aside, the trucking industry is itself struggling to get parts to make necessary repairs, causing fleets to be out-of-service for extended periods of time. They are also facing a worker shortage with too few drivers to maintain necessary deliveries across the country, including meeting the trucking needs of the oil and gas industry.
[…]
Energy In Depth
Look, outsider looking in, but pretty sure the MAGA King wouldn’t have farced up this badly.
As an insider, I’m in complete agreement.
FJB
I heard a former Trump official yesterday on tv say if Trump were president today, the U.S. would be pumping 15 million barrels of oil a day. Currently, it’s about 11 million barrels a day.
Biden took this extra production off the table and that’s what caused the gasoline prices to climb.
Of course, there are other issues too, like covid, and Putin’s war, and supply chain issues, but Biden’s war on oil and gas is one of the primary causes.
If Joe Biden wanted to pull us and the world out of this economic tailspin, he would announce tomorrow that the United States was going to pump as much oil as is possible and that the U.S. government will create the conditions for this to happen with favorable regulations and subsidies. Whatever it takes to get the oil out of the ground.
Just the announcement would affect prices if they were taken seriously.
Of course, Joe Biden is going to do just the opposite and block oil and gas production as much as he can because of his delusional views of CO2 climate change. Biden thinks CO2 is an existential threat to the U.S. and he will bankrupt the U.S. in his effort to reduce CO2 production.
This will cause us to have continued inflation as high transporation costs are directly tied to fuel costs. The higher the fuel cost, the higher the shipping costs, and the more we all have to pay for everything shipped; which is everything.
An all-out effort to produce as much oil as possible will pull us and the world out of the economic downturn we are in eventually, with Putin’s war being a complicating factor, but if we do not commit to pumping as much oil as possible and doing so, then our inflation and economic downturn is going to last a long time.
The U.S. can affect the price of oil in a favorable way by producing millions more barrels of oil a day. That is the way out of this mess.
Unfortunately, this is the last thing our delusional president will do.
I’m not sure how the new Congress can affect the situation after January 2023, but from now until then, don’t expect any solutions to the inflation and higher fuels prices from the Joe Biden administration.
They are all in on destroying the U.S. oil and gas industry and this will end up destroying the U.S. We can’t let that happen. It’s time to change direction.
IIRC, the KXL pipeline would be delivering 900,000 bbl/day of Alberta heavy oil to Gulf Coast refineries by now if Biden had not cancelled it.
Good points, but one major error:
FJB!
Who in his right mind is going to invest in oil and gas discovery and development when the administration along with the environuts keep saying they’re going to remove all petroleum products from the energy mix in the near future.
I would say “those that know it is impossible to do”, but bankers don’t seem any smarter than politicians. Oil and gas have specific valuable qualities that cannot be replaced in any economical way, unless we have both a major advance in batteries and a major advance in Electricity Production. Niether seems likely in the short term, and would also likely be opposed by the Anti-Energy zealots.
This is past the point of idealogy. This is the religion of the left. Oil is evil and they will not rest as long as we use it. But they have no intention of not using it. They just want to prevent the public from using it.
Continuing to let California set emission standards also led to the supply chain screwups, by requiring much newer trucks in the LA port area, as well as reclassifying contractors as employees in trucking.
The clowns around Biden are so opaque, one cannot tell if this is gross incompetence, or deliberate malice.
How about sending pallets of baby formula to the border, while keeping Abbott’s plant closed, creating a shortage across the country?
Hanlon’s Law generously offers “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence”’, but Bonk’s Corollary reminds us that “Malice and Incompetence are not mutually exclusive”.
To borrow from Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice”
I favor malice. Obammie the Commie had all the other Dummy Rats pull out of the SC primary
so Brandon could beat Sanders. So Bozo Joe’s 1st term”s B.O.’s 3rd term, with Susan Rice
running the WH & Valerie Jarrett’s the brains behind the operation. We know he’s a dyed-
in-the-wool Alinskyite promoting communism & everything Brandon’s doing advances commie
ideals. (Communism’s just a lie gangsters use to get & keep power.) Everything they do
is the exact opposite of what Trump would’ve done that would’ve worked. Their goal is
to install communism which always fails.
Politicking is rampant in election years even if it makes no sense at all.
Producing as much as we are, with refineries at 90% capacity (they can’t go any higher), and no new refineries being authorized to build, and environmental blocks being raised constantly in the face of reality is pretty stupid.
As a professor in the Homeland Security field (which includes infrastructure), I keep teaching students that political bloviating is just like the students offering uninformed opinions – it stinks and obviously so. Senator Kaine is only one step above the intelligence and far below the ignorance level of a graduate of the Chicago Public School system.
It’s always an election year or a year in preparation for an election year, so ,,,
Dr. James: Hey, professor, considering the environmental blocks have been funded by Russians for decades, could there be a more profound case of projection than the current talk of “Russian disinfo” from the left?
This trucker had two slow weeks. Now this week it’s been crazy busy! Could it be because the car manufacturers preparing for the projected coming diesel shortage?
All of my runs this week have been delivering Toyota service parts.
Maybe you can back haul some baby formula. Stay safe!
No not “Stay Safe” – Stay Free!
Two runs with Toyota Service Parts to the DC in Kansas City. KA. Back hauls were dry car batteries out of St. Joseph, MO on Tuesday. Spice tailings in bulk bags out of Unilever in Independence, MO on Thursday. Today (Friday) I did a Toyota milk run taking empty racks to and picking up parts at North American Lighting in Salem, IL then a stop at a NKS in Plainfield, IN picking up more Toyota Service parts. Then home.
I got up at 00:30, departed the terminal at 02:30 and got back to the home terminal an hour late at 13:00 because of getting caught in the back up of a bad accident on I-70 east of Effingham, IL. One big truck ran into the back of another very hard. It took them 40 minuets to extract the driver and get him on the life line helicopter. Based on the looks of the truck cab, I’m not sure that driver made it.
Monday at 04:00 I take off for a TENNECO milk run in the Chicago area. First stop Skokie, IL , Second stop Shiller Park, IL, then two stops in Elk Grove Village, IL out by the airport. Then back home to Anderson, IN.
Worst part of that run is taking I-94 up through the city during the morning rush. But I have noticed over the years that out of all weekdays, Monday morning rushes in any big city seem to be the lightest.
The Biden Admin, Buttgig’s DoT and the DoE are secretly formulating plans to impose nation-wide diesel rationing this summer. That of course will make the diesel shortage even worse by forcing a cap on diesel prices.
Mr. O’Bryan: That sounds true enough to be tagged as disinformation!! Careful. /s/
I’ve been waiting two months for a tiny clip that goes on the inside the rear bumper of a 2021 corolla.
If you could put a rush on it i would appreciate it 🙂
Thanks, David. Remember the good old days, when price was controlled by supply and demand? Now, with the Biden Administration hacking away at anything Made in America, price is controlled by supply, demand, and risk. The risk is that when you invest in a future business activity the Biden Administration cuts you off, by Executive Order, from producing and making a profit. The biggest example might be the Keystone Pipeline. Keep your powder dry until the next administration.
Wasn’t that long ago that if a CEO suggested building a facility overseas or in China, his board might have had reservations due to the risk of confiscation. Today the probability of regulatory confiscation here in the US is approaching 1.0.
They’re hoping that some voter somewhere is both a) worried about all the Democrat actions to reduce fuel production and increase prices and b) doesn’t know that both the lack of interest and the delays were caused by the Biden administration itself.
Mr. Middleton,
The unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of Americans have never been anywhere near the floor of a drill rig or on a semi-submersible. They have absolutely no clue how petroleum or natural gas is found or produced. They haven’t got the foggiest idea in hell what’s involved in getting a gallon of gasoline to the pump that fills their tank.
I would swear that some of them think finding oil is done the “Beverly Hillbillies” way.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/a0qeeW5BiHRi/
😆
Spiro T. Agnew was credited with being a Script Consultant. I wonder if his checkered past is discussed these days in what used to called civic classes.
The SNL skit could use a new theme song-
I Bought Myself A Politician – Monaisa Twins (Original)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
Same thing goes for electricity, groceries and just about everything else that people expect to be available when they need and/or want it.
Help us Mike Rowe, you’re our only hope… 😎
I’ve heard others say the same thing. Even Greg Gutfield said that.
We need to draft Mike Rowe for President.
‘They haven’t got the foggiest idea in hell what’s involved in getting a gallon of gasoline to the pump that fills their tank.’
No doubt that’s true, but that’s not the real problem. The entire story of economic progress over the past couple hundred years, or so, has been greater ‘specialization’ and ‘division of labor’, which together have resulted in a vast expansion of production and living standards.
People like Marx thought that such things were bad because they ‘alienated’ the workers from their ‘product’. Unfortunately, our progressive leaders of today agree, which is why they keep pouring sand in the gears so to speak.
Doesn’t milk come from bottles?
The real unfortunate truth is that too many Americans, in particular those coming out of an excess of so-called ‘education,’ (read: indoctrination) have no clue that everything they take for granted in modern civilization is thanks to fossil fuels, and they live in some dream world where we can stop using fossil fuels without essentially returning to Stone Age living.
It’ll make perfect sense when the presidential puppeteer team gets Joe or Calm-mala to announce nationalization of the oil and gas industry under the climate and economic emergency.
That worked out really well for Venezuela… 😉
Yes…what could possibly go wrong?
THere’s always the standard socialist line:
This time it will work.
I hear they’re mulling over price controls, so we can go from supply at high prices to no supply at low prices. To be fair, even the most indoctrinated Keynesian Klown knows these don’t work, but I think we’re dealing now with confirmed Leftists.
That’s usually what they do when they’re looking for an excuse to nationalize, yes.
“Look, the evil capitalists are refusing to make gasoline at a loss and it’s hurting the country. The government has to take over to get the industry working again!”
If you don’t have a coherent President you don’t have a coherent strategy. Simple as that.
This group does everything by committee. Obama wasn’t smart enough back then either.
I have also heard, that under Biden, several refining facilities have been converted to refine bio diesel from food sources, rather than diesel from oil. It would be interesting if this could be confirmed and reported on.
If true, Biden is complicit in manufacturing a contrived fuel shortage.
Without ample supplies of diesel, the country is going to suffer!
It’s true. If you’re a refiner without retail outlets you’re on the hook to acquire the RFS-mandated RINs. Alternatively, you can produce bio diesel, which allows you to sell the accompanying RINs. Just more regulatory road kill, compliments of our progressive betters.
Dear Dave Middleton,
I read your article on oil permits and leasing. I have heard that the reason oil companies are not purchasing leases is that the Biden adm. is not approving any permits to drill on those lease purchases. Can you confirm or disprove that claim, please?
Permits on existing leases are being issued. Although, they have been increasingly slow-walking the approval process.
The Biden maladministration is legally required to hold lease sales for Federal onshore and offshore leasing areas. They have unlawfully refused to hold any onshore lease sales. They held one Gulf of Mexico lease sale last November because a Federal judge threatened to hold them in contempt of court. That sale was unlawfully nullified by a corrupt Obama judge. They are legally required to publish a five year lease sale plan. The deadline for the next five year plan is in July. That have stated that they will not issue a new five year plan. This is blatantly illegal.
When the Executive and Judicial branches refuse to obey and enforce the laws, we have a Make America Venezuela Already… MAVA King.
Mr. M.: My guess is that the federal judges in Venezuela still eat well, and get their gasoline at a never-empty gov’t pump. Maybe not, as Venezuela is far enough along in the experiment with socialism that they are like the Saudi communists who eventually run short of sand. I don’t think our nation will survive this imbecilic admin. and don’t think courts will save us from our own folly.
I remember asking the question, some time ago… “What happens if the Executive Branch just ignores the Judicial and Legislative Branches?” The answer then was. “That’s what impeachment is for.” Turned out that answer was wrong because the Executive in office from 2009 – 2016 ignored court rulings and laws, left and right, and was celebrated for it while, the one in office from 2017 – 2021, was impeached, twice, for being right and tweeting as much.
Max P
Trucks cant get parts, huh? Bet you wish more pipelines were under construction. Just saying!!
Right… the second largest oil exporter in the world stops exporting, world oil prices rise to the highest prices ever, but there is a lack of interest in new lease sales.
Then, when you actually read the article, you find out it was an Obama apppointee federal judge who ordered the cancellation of the sale because “climate change™”
“I get the reason for the cancellation announced today was concerns about climate. That’s the reason. And we ought to be concerned about climate,” Kaine said …
Yes indeed. “Concerns about climate” are the drivers – the go to excuse – for flattening the economy, locking down oil, coal, and gas, off the charts inflation, diving stock markets, wealth erasure, shrinking savings, power grid failures, runaway govt debt, carbon taxes, heartbreaking reversion to authoritarianism, cancel culture, resource wars, WW3 in the offing, and etc. etc.
The Warmunistas and the jaw gnashing over their imaginary looming Hotpocalypse have shivved and mugged the entire planet.
This outpost, WUWT, is one of the few places where Warmunism is being countered. Bless you all for your efforts. If on occasion I find the discussions adrift in trivialities, it’s only because in the background the Hoax juggernaut is so hugely horrific and destructive. I would like more howitzers, less peashooters. Don’t hold back. The monster must be slain, not pin pricked.
Dementia Joe and his Demwits are going down hard in November. It won’t even be close.
Let’s hope so.
Yeah, but I keep having this troubling vision of the courtroom scene in the ‘Untouchables’, where Al Capone (played by Robert DeNiro) shows absolutely no concern over plaintiff’s testimony, since he knows the jury has been bribed.
Just remember, it’s not who votes, it’s who counts the votes.
Doesn’t mean anything will change, Joel. R’s haven’t exactly done a good job standing up to nonsense in the past – not for a long time.
Mr. G.: Depends on what nonsense we are talking about. G.W. Bush didn’t stand up to many bits of nonsense on other subjects, but he did unleash the oil and gas sectors, in particular NG frakking. These energy policies prevented Obama from his intended “skyrocketing price of electricity” and helped him get re-elected in ’12 in spite of himself. Trump went back to energy first, and the Saudis had to manipulate things, driving the price down to impair frakking. Obama admin people (who wanted what we are seeing now to happen then) are all back in power now, and finishing the demolition job they started when Barry was President. In this endeavor, unfortunately, they show a streak of competence.
paul, I guess I’ve just seen too many promises not kept and too many spineless rinos cozy up to the media (hoping to not be called bad names I guess) over the last 14 or so years. Too many establishment types.
As for your two points: IIRC Bush was an oil guy to begin with, and Trump was complete anomaly.
What did CONGRESS accomplish when they had the chance in 2017?
Don’t forget 20,000 Mules without cell phones…coming this November to a mail-in ballot dropbox near you!
This is how a command economy works:
I command, you comply
Which works as well as commanding solar panels to work at night and wind turbines to work on windless days
It’s not “maladministration.” Leftists aren’t stupid, and saying they are let’s them off the hook of accountability. Canceling lease sales, slow-walking drilling permits, regulatory nitpicking, and in-court gamesmanship are purposeful strategies. It’s time to recognize Democrats as malevolent and hold them to account for their America-hating, Constitution-ignoring, liberty-killing policies.
“In politics stupidity is not a handicap”
It won’t be am immediate fix but it can’t hurt to complete Keystone, support other pipelines, pipe more gas into north eastern states so they don’t compete on the world market for gas in the winter when the cold settles in, and get serious about curtailing illegal blockages and actions by extremists against any type of resource development that doesn’t fit their intolerant and ill-advised belief systems. Also how about stop the decommissioning of perfectly functional coal, gas and nuclear electrical plants.
There may well be a red wave coming in November. But to accomplish all of the above, we would need to get a veto proof majority in both houses. Not going to happen, without even thinking about the Rinos who might vote anti-Maga. 🙁
The administration’s (and CNN’s) explanation is lack of interest by oil producers. Could it be they’re not interested in having politicians ruin them? (Although opting out of development by a developer gets the ruin done and even ruins the whole “chain.” In other words, “Mission Accomplished.”)
The supposed “lack of interest” is easy to explain. Who wants to spend Millions to get the lease, and Millions more to explore your leasehold, only to be denied a permit to drill?
But if you click the link labeled “ and delays” somewhat above, what actually happened is a Progressive Judge canceled the sale, and demanded a new EIS based on solid Warmista ideology.
Not to worry. With US diesel fuel stockpiles at historic lows and diesel prices at record highs, and the promise of summer-fall harvests and leisure travel to make it far worse, the Biden Admin is secretly considering a nation-wide diesel rationing scheme to be put in place by July to ensure truckers and and farmers can get diesel at lower prices.
That attempt at market and price manipulation will, like every thing the Democrats do, guarantee the situation gets worse and shortages becomes severe.
Link?
“…does not appear that the administration has a “coherent strategy” when it comes…”
to anything.
There, fixed it.
Once you muck up a just-in-time supply chain that took decades to build, it takes a long time to fix it. Maybe a decade or two. Buckle up – we still have a rough ride in front of us.
WHY are we worried about climate?
The other emitters including India and China are not, and their CO2 production INCREASES dwarf any US REDUCTIONS even if we went to “Net-0” (whatever that means) tomorrow!
It boggles the mind!
No no, Putin invaded Alaska, that’s why the leases were cancelled.