In light of the fact that big oil has leases on hundreds of thousands of square miles?

of offshore oil fields that they are NOT drilling on should make everyone ask ';are they holding out to keep the price high';.


(We all know the answer - don't we)





Should the US terminate those leases and award them to smaller oil companies that WILL go and drill those oil fields to help with supply?In light of the fact that big oil has leases on hundreds of thousands of square miles?
The leases that are producing or contain enough oil to be profitable are being drilled in. They tend to drill where the oil is and where there is enough of it to be profitable. They would love to drill in areas off limits where surveys have indicated billions and in some cases, trillions of barrels.In light of the fact that big oil has leases on hundreds of thousands of square miles?
How would the US terminate those leases? Those leases are between the oil companies and the land owners, the government has nothing to do with it. And the major oil companies are usually not the ones who do the actual drilling. It is the smaller, privately owned drilling companies. Usually they just own one or two drilling rigs. These people risk everything every time they drill, so they have to do everything they can to make sure that they don't drill a dry hole. The oil companies might have the lease, but they hire the independent drillers to get the oil out of the ground, and the land owner has a share of the oil that comes out, usually, and the oil companies buy that from the driller and land owner.
It never ceases to amaze me how people defend the oil companies and make statements in the process that are totally untrue due to their complete lack of information on the subject. Like the person trying to tell you it's between the companies and the land owners when we're speaking of public land leased by the government to these companies.





I wouldn't say holding out, I think it's more prevention. If company A holds so many leases, it prevents companies B and C from flanking company A.
I feel that there should be a drill by date, if there has been no activity during the allotted time frame, then the leases should be forfeited and money as well. It would serve notice that the Government is serious, and the oil companies should act responsible. Acquiring leases for speculation is not good for the country.
the oil companies are spending Billions to open up those leases !





the oil companies like to make money


they don't like to pay for leases they are not using.


----------------


I know


AND


those are the leases that the oil companies are spending BILLIONS on


Right Now !!!!!!!


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plus


as Always..


the oil companies Give Back the leases they Don't want !


(why would they waste the money)
of course this is what is happening. oil companies have been raking in billions in record profits. they have zero incentive to drill more oil and increase the supply and drive the price down. They can sit there and do nothing and keep raking it in.
If other companies will drill, sure.





But if something costs $200 a barrel to collect, and can only be sold for $150 a barrel, nobody's going to drill.
NO, THEY SHOULD BILL THE LEASEHOLDERS EVERY YEAR, BASED ON THE TOTAL ACREAGE OF THE LEASED LAND.
Open 'em up to wildcatters. Just like in the old days.
sure, but how could the small company afford the expenses?
A company bids for and buys a lease because it believes there is a possibility that it may yield enough oil or natural gas to make the cost of the lease, and the costs of exploration and production, commercially viable. The U.S. government received $3.7 billion from company bids in a single lease sale in March 2008.





until the actual exploration is complete, a company does not know whether the lease will be productive. If, through exploration, it finds there is no oil or natural gas underneath a lease 鈥?or that there is not enough to justify the investment required to bring it to the surface 鈥?the company cuts its losses by moving on to more promising leases. Yet it continues to pay rent on the lease, atop a leasing bonus fee.





if the company does not develop the lease within a certain period of time, it must return it to the federal government, forfeiting all its costs. All during this active exploration and evaluation phase, however, the lease is listed as ';nonproducing.';





Obviously, companies want to start producing from active fields as soon as possible. However, there are a number of time-consuming steps to be taken before they can do so: Delineation wells must be drilled to size the field, government permits must be obtained, and complex production facilities must be engineered and installed. All this takes considerable time, and during that time, the lease is also listed as ';nonproducing.';





Because a lease is not producing, critics tag it as ';idle'; when, in reality, it is typically being actively explored and developed. Multiply these real-world circumstances by hundreds or thousands of leases, and you end up with the seemingly damning but inaccurate figures critics cite.





Our companies have made tremendous strides in developing cutting-edge exploration technology. But they are not magicians. They cannot produce oil or natural gas where it does not exist. A significant percentage of federal leases simply may not contain oil and natural gas, especially in commercial quantities.