And the Democraps want to sue OPEC, too funny.
The Demo CONgress has also banned the drilling for oil shale in the Rockies, a typical head in the sand thing to do.
The energy difficulties we are facing will only be slowed by drilling everywhere not just off-shore and:
Mandating improved MPG.
Liquifing of coal.
Building new Nuclear power plants.
Building clean coal power plants.
Building wind and solar farms.
Demand destruction, which is just starting.
Telling environuts and nimbyies to take a hike when they block wind power and lng regas facilities and anything energy related. For some reason they hate energy but couldn't live a day with out it
What is leased is in the GOM and it is in decline in the shallower waters.
No, not all leased areas have been drilled, the first step an E&P does is shoot seismic to try an identify possible targets (if any), then process that info, this can take as much as 2 or 3 years and millions of dollars.
If a target determined to viable then you have to the environmental studies and have them approved, add another year or two.
Once permitted to drill you have to get a rig, pipe both in short supply and many other necessities to drill, add another year or two.
Finally you can drill, depending on the depth of the water and the TD(total depth) depth this can take anywhere between 3 months to a year, if there aren't too many problems drilling, like stuck pipe, lost BHA's, replacing BOPS and numerous other things that arise.
So now you are at TD and if lucky some shows on the logs, so you do wireline testing, cut cores all to determine if it's vialble to do flow testing, add another month or two.
Now you have a "made well", now you have to tie it into a pipeline, if the infrastructure is close by no problem if not then more permits, epa approvals, acquiring the pipe, building a platform and finally installing the platform, pipe, add 3 months to 6 years depending on location and platform requirements. The key here is it large enough to be a commercial well for a long tie in project.
I've seen wells drilled in HPHT(high pressure high temp) environments(deep) that were estimated to have 600 BCF of natural gas reserves, only to be P&A'ed(plugged and abandoned)due to excessive cost to complete and tie in, it happens everyday. When Natural gas gets to $25 it may be worth going back in and producing those type of wells.
Due to the fact that an E&P is going to drill their best prospect first and if it's non-commercial then they may move on to anther lease and try to forget the 50-300 illion they just blew on a dry hole.
So to sum up, once a lease is won(money in govt pocket), then up 4 years before the bit will starts turning to the right, then if commercial then up to an additional 6 years before production can begin, oh and they can spend betweeen 150 million to a couple Billion dollars by now while waiting for tie in to infrastructure this before the E&P shows any income from the venture.
During this time our witless leaders and the head in the sand crowd call it idle, go figure!
This is why it is critical to open everything up now, with the shortage of rigs, pipe, personnel etc. the 10 year estimate before prodution on a new area maybe conservative for affshoreFor the Rockies shale oil the 10 year estimate may be ok, if they start now.
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