Daily Archives: August 23, 2011
Obama Doesn’t Care About Creating Jobs
by Jim Lakely August 23, 2011
Near the end of the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama — knowing he would win — told his supporters that they were just days away from “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Radio host Dennis Prager was one of the few to quickly home in on that quote and wonder what should have been obvious to everyone listening: Why would a man who loved and respected his country want to “fundamentally transform” it?
That’s like telling your spouse, Prager said (paraphrasing): “I love you, baby. But we need to fundamentally transform the way you look, act and think.” How might your spouse take such a statement? Mine would not take it well — for good reason (and in the reverse, too). If you love someone, or something — like your country — you don’t want to “fundamentally transform” it. That choice of words by Obama is telling, in retrospect.
So take Obama’s words at face value, and weigh them with how he has acted and governed as president since January 2009. Make your own judgments. Draw your own conclusions. But that famous Obama victory-is-at-hand quote came to mind when I read this post at the Power Line blog: “Obama’s ‘Industrial Sabatoge’ Devastates the Gulf.”
John Hinderaker points to a post at MasterResource, “a free-market energy blog.” Kevin Mooney “tabulates the damage that the Obama administration is doing to the Gulf economy, and to the energy industry generally”:
Ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010 and others could follow soon…. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.
It gets worse.
Several of the remaining rigs could be relocating soon, according to the report. These include the Paul Romano, the Ocean Monarch and the Saratoga. Moreover, eight other rigs that were planned for the Gulf have been detoured away, Don Briggs, President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), points out.
Remember what I’ve emphasized above in bold the next time you hear the Obama administration or other politicians mouth platitudes about ending our dependence on foreign oil. They don’t want to end our dependence on foreign oil. They want to shut off the spigots altogether.
Through every action — from driving out American rigs from American waters in the Gulf, to shutting off access to oil reserves in Alaska and elsewhere, to refusing to allow a pipeline from Canada to American refineries, to hyping the phony dangers of “fracking” for shale gas — the left wants to end domestic exploration and extraction of all fossil fuels. They want to centrally plan our economy dramatically downward into a “green” fantasy — one that is unsustainable if we wish to retain our standard of living and place in the world as a leading economic engine.
President Obama’s transformational energy plan is wholly intentional. Tapping America’s vast energy resources would create hundreds of thousands of jobs — but Obama simply doesn’t care. Putting people to work takes a distant back seat to “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” towards an unworkable leftist utopia.
That MasterResource post Hinderaker highlights quotes Bonner Cohen of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Cohen expands on what he sees as the “broader devastation being wrought by the Obama administration’s energy policies.”
“What you are seeing in Louisiana is only a small piece of larger mosaic being put together by the Obama Administration to make affordable energy as inaccessible as possible,” Cohen said. “From the administration’s war on coal to the serious consideration it is giving to imposing a nationwide regulation of hydraulic fracturing, to its shut down of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, to its ‘endangerment finding’ from the EPA, the administration is practicing its own form of selected industrial sabotage.”
Hinderaker writes: “If a hostile nation drove our drilling rigs out of the Gulf of Mexico, it would be an act of war.” Harsh, but it’s hard to call it false. Other countries, some hostile to the United States, are swooping into the Gulf to drill for the energy they need. We are purposely, through government policy, surrendering the ground — driving away U.S. firms and all the jobs that go with them.
And Obama, and his administration, could hardly care less. It’s actually the plan.
Obama’s Real Energy Policy
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann recently promised $2/gallon gas at one of her campaign functions, and a researcher affiliated with NASA reported that aliens may destroy humanity to save the planet. Which statement is farther off the wall? Let’s set the stage with the facts.
Last week, the Obama administration found itself in a legal battle with Exxon over the largest find in the company’s history, a field of over 1 billion barrels off the coast of Louisiana. This represents 5% of total U.S. oil reserves and there’s supposed to be a lot more out there. The Marcellus Shale field in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland contains between 160 and 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Out in North Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan, the Bakken deposit is estimated to contain from 10-40 billion barrels of oil equivalent according to industry experts. This doesn’t include large deposits in Colorado, Wyoming, and elsewhere. Even if Bakken comes in at the low end it, represents another 40-50% increase in onshore American oil reserves.
In the meantime, the oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico are still reporting incredible delays in re-opening even the inshore oil rigs. Offshore fields have become almost impossible to develop despite the incredible size of some of these discoveries. The government shut down even the inshore oil fields in the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year. The Department of the Interior just announced the first auction of oil leases since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy in April of last year, to be held in December. The Gulf provides 29% of America’s oil and 13% of our natural gas.
A report released in July by LA Senator David Vitter noted the departure of 10 deep-water rigs, the imminent departure of several more, and the diversion of 8 more since the moratorium was declared in May 2010. Each of these projects ranged from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in investment. Many of those rigs are on their way to the vast 50- to 80-billion-bbl Lula oil field off the Brazilian coast. It is interesting to note that the Export-Import Bank is loaning $10 billion to Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, to invest in their offshore oil industry. Funny timing.
The administration has also done its best to stall drilling both on the North Slope and in the Cook Inlet in Alaska. While talking about exploration, new pipelines, and improved practices, the reality is that every roadblock possible is being placed in the way of increased production. Last year, Fenton Associates, the public relations agency for many environmental groups, boasted that they had shut down drilling in Alaska.
“Drill, baby, Drill” has been replaced by “Chill, baby, Chill.”
While having approved several nuclear power projects, all of them additional reactors at existing sites, the government has adroitly avoided offering the necessary licensing guarantees necessary to obtain funding to build them. Another catch-22 engineered by the bureaucracy.
Ezra Klein in the Washington Post reports that the EPA is moving forward with its plans to shutter 20% of the nation’s coal-fired power plants. While many are grandfathered in, the power will still go offline starting in the next 18 months. The president has clearly stated on the record that he wants to put the coal industry out of business.
The real battle is being fought under the radar. The administration is using regulatory power and permitting to choke off conventional power. Last year, I sat in a packed conference center at China’s largest solar power conference as I listened to one of Europe’s leading solar power executives state that the industry needed to work to make conventional power so expensive that alternative energy sources can compete. This has been a part of the plan all along and the current administration seems to be working along those lines.
This is economic and engineering Luddism at its worst. After the farce of the carbon offset scam and many of the issues facing the industry, administrators, systems operators, and users would be well-advised to look upon many alternative energy technology providers with a gimlet eye. Objectivity is critical to the long-term health of the energy industry.
Let’s look at the alternatives. Test data on solar modules indicates a failure rate of between 3-7% within seven years of installation. Failures of inverters are exceeding 10%. None of this data is reflected in the current economic models for solar power. The assumption is 25 years, but there is very limited data. The business model for solar panels is becoming ever more challenging with rising materials costs globally and that of labor in China. In North America Solyndra has gone through over $535 million in government funding and is on the edge. Evergreen Solar, another poster child for solar power in this country, filed for bankruptcy last week.
Globally, the solar module industry will install 11-12 gigawatts of power this year, or the equivalent of 4-5 nuclear power plants. This certainly does not keep up with demand. As Germany and Japan have announced the phase-out of nuclear power, the great mystery is how it will be replaced.
As GM, Nissan, Toyota, and other car companies have ramped up production of electric vehicles, General Motors reported that the company had sold only 125 Chevy Volts in July. Costco announced that the company was removing electric vehicle charging stations from most of its locations because the stations are never used.
Wind power has received a lot of press, but even there, the largest project planned for the country was canceled because of obstruction and a poor financial outlook. Wind power is subsidized at up to 10 times the cost of conventional energy and is unpredictable. In studies of the over 6,000 turbines in Denmark, it has been found that without heavy subsidies, wind power would rapidly fail. Germany and Spain have withdrawn subsidies for wind power installations not because the industry has grown more viable, but rather because the difficulties and costs associated with this source of power outweigh the benefits.
And yet nowhere have I seen a coherent and objective study of the energy needs and policy of the United States, the world’s largest consumer. As American consumption of energy stands at 27,000 terawatts, with $85-bbl oil, an economy on the verge of recession, and significant capacity going offline, it would be nice to have a policy that is not based upon smoke and mirrors, or even some kind of sensible policy at all.
Maybe Congresswoman Bachmann isn’t so crazy after all. Judge for yourself. In the meantime I’ll be watching the skies for alien invaders.
December 2026: A Nightmare
By Jerry Della Femina July 27th, 2011
Grandpa, I’m so so cold.
So am I. Let’s burn some more copies of the Press with my old columns about The Supreme Leader, Barack Obama. Those columns weren’t much good anyway.
But Grandpa, why is it so cold?It’s cold because we have no oil. There isn’t a drop of oil anywhere in this country.
Why, Grandpa?
Because drilling for oil in Alaska was bad for the caribou. And drilling for oil offshore sometimes caused an oil spill. And we used up every drop of oil we had.
But couldn’t we have bought the oil from another country?
Yes, but we ran out of money and the Chinese were so mad that we couldn’t pay back the money we owed them that they bought up a lot of the world’s supply of oil for themselves.
Then, of course, Iran developed nuclear weapons and eliminated Israel and threatened all the countries in the Middle East where we used to buy oil back when we had money.
But Grandpa, is that when The Supreme Leader Barack Obama made that great speech that I read about in my schoolbooks?
Yes, he was in his best speech-making mood after we lost Israel and the Middle East.
Who could his forget his “Shame on you, Iran, for being not nice” speech at the United Nations. The delegates cheered him for seven minutes and gave him their “Prince of Peace” award. Then he made a brilliant speech blaming the banks, the rich, the oil companies and the car companies for making us dependent on oil and causing global warming.
Grandpa, isn’t that when Obama dissolved our armed forces?
Yes, that was his most famous “What do we need the military for? We’ve won the respect of the Third World by destroying all of our weapons” speech.
Then he flew to Iran, threw his arms around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said, “I will be your friend if you will be my friend.” Ahmadinejad just giggled and walked away.
Was Obama embarrassed?
No. He dropped to his knees and said, “I never liked Israel either.” Then he sang “All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the Iranian parliament. Actually they laughed until they had tears in their eyes. Sadly, Iran tried to destroy the glory of Obama’s big moment the next day when they dropped a hydrogen bomb on Saudi Arabia. But that didn’t stop Obama. He went to Brazil and made his famous “I’m starting to lose patience with Iran” speech.
Brazil?
Yes. By that time the United Nations had moved out of New York because we were out of oil and re-located to Brazil where it was warmer and more comfortable.
Grandpa, was that in 2016, when he stopped being President and asked to be re-elected for the third time?
Yes, that was a wonderful time for the Liberals, the unions, Democrats and The New York Times. It started with a New York Times front page “news” story titled “Many Want Obama To Stay On.” Then the Times said in an editorial that since it was against the law for Obama to be elected President again, let’s eliminate the title of President and elect him as The Supreme Leader.
Yes, I read all about it in school. That’s when he ended taxes and unemployment in the United States.
Exactly. Since he had convinced everyone that the rich were destroying the country and he had taxed just about every penny he could get out of them, he came up with his “Your Money or Your Life” amendment.
He said, “We are all born equal and there is no reason why we shouldn’t stay equal financially, no matter if one man chooses to work every day of his life and another man chooses to live off the work of the man who works.”
Grandpa, I know the great Obama “We are all our brothers’ keepers” speech, and that’s when he was declared the last President of the United States and the first “Leader of the World.”
Yes. So far we’re the only country to go along with this, and all the other countries have more respect for Costa Rica as a world power than us, but you know how persuasive Obama can be when he opens his mouth. YES HE CAN, YES HE CAN.
But Grandpa, it’s freezing. I’m so so cold.
Well I have a surprise for you. For your 10th birthday your Grandpa just sold everything we have for nine pieces of black-market coal.
Grandpa! Grandpa! Nine pieces of coal—we’re rich!
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Collateral Damage: Lost Gulf Rigs from Obama Obstructionism (10 down, more to go?)
by Kevin Mooney
August 18, 2011
“The Gulf Spill of 2010 maybe be remembered as much or more for the economic damage it did because of the Obama’s regulatory overreaction than for the environmental damage it wrought. Two wrongs do not make a right.”
Ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010 and others could follow soon, a detailed July 2011 report from Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La.) office shows.
The ten rigs named in the document are: Marinas, Discover Americas, Ocean Endeavor, Ocean Confidence, Stena Forth, Clyde Bourdeaux, Ensco 8503, Deep Ocean Clarion, Discover Spirit, and Amirante. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.
It gets worse.
Several of the remaining rigs could be relocating soon, according to the report. These include the Paul Romano, the Ocean Monarch and the Saratoga. Moreover, eight other rigs that were planned for the Gulf have been detoured away, Don Briggs, President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), points out.
“When you have companies that would be spending hundreds of millions of dollars, or some cases, billions of dollars, they need certainty,” Briggs explained. “We don’t have that now and I don’t expect that we will anytime soon. We will be in a deteriorating position until this changes.”
Briggs has also questioned the necessityof the moratorium that was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.
The federal regulatory schemes that are now aimed against Louisiana will ultimately work to the disadvantage of industry in other parts of the country, Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), has warned.
What you are seeing in Louisiana is only a small piece of larger mosaic being put together by the Obama Administration to make affordable energy as inaccessible as possible,” he said. “From the administration’s war on coal to the serious consideration it is giving to imposing a nationwide regulation of hydraulic fracturing, to its shut down of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, to its `endangerment finding” from the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], the administration is practicing its own form of selected industrial sabotage.
Sen. Vitter has called outtop Obama administration officials for issuing what he views as conflicting and misleading statements on the correct number offshore drilling permits. A U.S. Justice Department motion filed in March stated there are 270 shallow water permit applications and 52 deepwater permit applications pending.
But in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this past March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Interior Department had received only 47 shallow water permit applications over the previous nine months and that only seven deepwater permit applications were pending. Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, told Vitter personallythat only six deepwater permits were pending, and he publicly stated that deepwater permits would be limited because “only a handful of completed applications have been received.”
Vitter has also announced that he will block the nomination of Rebecca Wodder to serve as Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife Parks for the Department of Interior unless expiring Gulf drilling leases are extended for another year.
“Since the moratorium, oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico has been dramatically curtailed,” Vitter said. “In 2011 alone, more than 300 offshore drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico are due to expire. If these leases are allowed to expire, they will revert to the federal government, killing jobs and cutting off potential revenue from exploration and production. The U.S. economy will greatly benefit by allowing the offshore energy industry to get to work and stay working.”
Earlier this year, Vitter also blocked the nomination of Dan Ashe to the Interior Department, but lifted it after new deepwater exploratory permits were issued. In addition, Vitter has successfully opposed an almost $20,000 pay raise for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
The Gulf Spill of 2010 maybe be remembered as much or more for the economic damage it did because of the Obama’s regulatory overreaction than for the environmental damage it wrought.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Australia: Fairstar Vessel FJELL Joins Gorgon LNG Project Fleet
Fairstar Heavy Transport N.V. (FAIR) has signed a third contract with Chevron PTY LTD and the Kellogg Joint Venture – Gorgon.
Under the terms of the contract, the semi-submersible vessel FJELL will provide marine transportation of modules and other related equipment over a series of voyages commencing in the second half of 2012 for a period of ten months. Chevron Australia PTY LTD and the Kellogg Joint Venture – Gorgon have options to extend the contract for up to an additional nine months.
The Gorgon Project, operated by Chevron Australia PTY LTD, is a joint venture of Chevron (approximately 47 percent), ExxonMobil (25 percent) and Shell (25 percent), Osaka Gas (1.25 percent), Tokyo Gas (one percent) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417 percent).
EXXONMOBIL BATTLES U.S. OVER GULF OIL DISCOVERY
ExxonMobil discovers one of the largest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas fields, but the U.S. Interior Department says the company’s lease has expired
By John Shimkus
With the Gulf of Mexico slowly opening up once more to offshore exploration and production activity, companies like ExxonMobil have been quick to jump back in the drilling game. However, the U.S. Interior Department is being stricter than ever with permits, and according to them, ExxonMobil’s permit for its huge Julia oil field discovery—one of the largest fields found in the Gulf of Mexico in recent history—has expired.
The Julia field is believed to hold more than 700 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. ExxonMobil announced the discovery, which lies roughly 250 miles southwest of New Orleans, in June. Exploiting the fields could yield billions of dollars for both ExxonMobil and in royalties paid to the U.S. government. In fact, a 1 billion barrel field could generate around $10.95 billion in government royalties.
So why is the Interior Department reluctant to renew ExxonMobil’s permits, especially at a time when that kind of increased production could significantly reduce the United State’s oil shock? The Interior Department claims ExonMobil’s leases are expired and the company hasn’t met the requirements for an extension. “Our priority remains the safe development of the nation’s offshore energy resources, which is why we continue to approve extensions that meet regulatory standards,” says a spokeswoman for the Interior Department.
ExxonMobil spokesman Patrick McGinn claims that the government traditionally grants extensions as a matter of course. “You state your case and you got it.” The government’s refusal “was unexpected.”
ExxonMobil and partner to the field Statoil have filed separate lawsuits in a Louisiana federal court to extend the leases. If the oil companies lose in court, the Julia field could fall into the hands of the federal government, ultimately delaying exploitation of the resources. ExxonMobil lost in an appeals process to the feds in May, citing the company’s lack of a specific plan to produce the oil.
While there’s no sense in playing favorites between the private and public sector, I would take it as a slap in the face to have invested millions into exploration activity to make one of the biggest oil and gas discoveries in recent history, only to have it ripped away by the regulators. It will be interesting to see how this case plays out as the U.S. economy continues to implode and a gigantic question mark still looms over oil markets.
India: Cochin Shipyard Names Two Platform Supply Vessels
Cochin Shipyard Naming ceremony for two ships , the naming ceremony of two Platform Supply Ships (PSV) BY 83 and BY 84 was conducted at a glittering ceremony held at Cochin Shipyard. These ships were named Brage Supplier and Brage Trader respectively by Ms. Siri Kleiveland, wife of Mr. Sigfinn Bartz Johanessen, Chairman , Sigba group, and Ms. Ingun Hestness, wife of Mr. Thorolf Hestness, Chairman of Board of Brage Supplier KS.
These Ships are of the PSV 09 design, developed by STX Europe. The vessels are being built by CSL for M/s Brage Supplier KS, Norway. Cmde K Subramaniam presided over the function and rendered the welcome address. Mr. Sigfin Bartz Johannessen , Chairman , Sigba group, addressed the gathering. Shri V Radhakrishnan , Director (Technical) and other senior officials of CSL were also present during the event. Brage Supplier and Brage Trader are part of a 4 vessel series of PSV 09 CD type Platform Supply vessel being built by CSL.
The first vessel of the series was delivered to M/s DOF, Norway, on 07 July 2011. CSL ventured into the Offshore vessel construction segment in 2005 and till now have delivered 21 high end vessels to international owners. Presently, CSL has a total of 13 offshore vessels in the order book. Apart from this, the yard is also constructing 20 Nos Fast Patrol Vessels for the Indian Coast Guard and the prestigious Aircraft Carrier for the Indian Navy. The yard is well poised to achieve ambitious growth plans of the shipbuilding division with the above orders.
BY 83 and BY 84 are modern large segment Diesel Electric PSV’s designed to cater to meet the all round needs of the Offshore oil and gas industry. The vessel with length of 86M and breadth of 19 M meets the highest levels of environmental safety denoted by the CLEAN DESIGN notation of M/s Det Norske Veritas, The vessel in addition to the normal offshore supply operations, is capable of carrying methanol and is equipped with Dynamic positioning Grade 2 equipment. Accommodation of high standards meeting Comfort Class requirements of DNV is arranged for 44 people.
Related articles
- Norway: STX OSV Delivers Platform Supply Vessel to Solstad (mb50.wordpress.com)
- STX OSV Adds to their Backlog, DOF ASA Sends Newbuild Order for Subsea Construction Vessel (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Norway: STX OSV Brevik Shipyard Hands Over PSV Island Captain (mb50.wordpress.com)
Continents of the World
