Does someone have links that explains the unexplored land that oil companies have? I keep hearing about this on this blog, but would like to learn more. Is the land known to have oil deposits or is it just land they have that may or may not have oil deposits? I keep hearing about this but have yet to see facts. Thanks in advance.

It was Senator Obama, not John McCain, who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was a sweetheart deal for oil companies. Also not mentioned is the $400,000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election.

Ray - I found some info a while back and posted it here.

$400K as compared to $2M - big difference.

Mr. Ward thinks he is smarter and a higher achiever than this authour but I found this informative:

Mr. Cavaney is president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the trade association that represents America's oil and natural gas industry.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121391719487790187.html

The 'Idle' Oil Field Fallacy

A bill introduced in Congress this week would "compel" oil and natural gas companies to produce from federal lands they are leasing. If only it were that easy to find and produce oil. Imagine, an act of Congress that could do what geology could not.

These lawmakers ask why oil and gas companies want more access to federal lands to drill if they aren't using all of the 68 million acres they already have? Anyone with even the most basic understanding of how oil and natural gas are produced - and this should include many members of Congress - knows that claims of "idle" leases are a diversionary feint.

Much more at link

"Mr. Ward thinks he is smarter and a higher achiever than this authour but I found this informative:"

Well, I do know how to spell "author"... does that count for something?

The "authour" is a paid, oil industry shill. He writes these things because he's paid to write them. Denise has spammed us with this same link before.

Last time she did so I gave Denise a hard time because she referred to the link as an authoritative source without mentioning the guy is paid to pump up big oil interests in the media - you don't find that out until you get to the bottom of the article at the WSJ - imagine that...

Thanks for mentioning it up front, Denise - and ignore my dig at "authour" - I typo and misspell words all the time.

Last time she did so I gave Denise a hard time because she referred to the link an an authoritative source without mentioning the guy is paid to pump up big oil interests in the media - you dont find that out until you get to he bottom of the article at the WSJ - imgine that...

Lee, bumpkiss, it is common editorial practice among many news room and outlets to put the background of the guest editor at the bottom of the article. There's nothing sinister to it. At all.

But nice job of attacking the author (and Denise for her misspelling of 'author') instead of actually addresing the content of the article. SOP.

Well, Mr. Ward, I could care less about your spelling tutourial. It wasn't a typo.

I moved to the USA when I was 17 and was educated in some wonderful schools abroad. I appreciate this country and the freedoms we have FAR more than you seem to.

By the way, you gave no one a "hard" time. Your commenters usually run rings around you; you just don't seem aware of it.

Anyone deluded enough to vote for John McCain and George Bush would feel that way, Denise.

I am honored by your presence, and the extent to which you spam our comment threads will links to paid shills as "sources" of good information.

"Lee, bumpkiss, it is common editorial practice among many news room and outlets to put the background of the guest editor at the bottom of the article. There's nothing sinister to it. At all."

The good ones put it at the top of the article, so as you read the article you can factor in that the guy who wrote it is paid well over $100,000 to promote big oil.

The WSJ doesn't however. No surprise there.

I addressed the subject in the post which was linked above. I'm not going to bother to link it again, but Denise found it - so obviously a child could find it...

heh.

It seems to me that what the term "idle" means can be interpretted differently by each person based on their own agenda. In addition to the two links above, I also found this:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20040814/ai_n11468535

Why land may be idle seems to make sense to me from what I've read. You can't actively explore 26 million acres of land and most likely the vast majority of won't have oil or gas deposits anyway. If we know there are deposits somewhere offshore, it seems to make a lot more sense to go where we know there is oil instead of to where there's a likelihood there isn't oil.

Oil companies don't lease land unless they suspect that land has oil on it.

More, more, more...

As of 2004, according to that link, oil companies had 1.5 million acres in Alaska already under lease, and they were only actively exploring 4% of that.

Now, there's no reason to continue to pay for a land lease for land that doesn't have oil... They're paying millions of dollars each month to hold onto those leases...

and when Pelosi said "drop the leases on the land you have if you want more, so someone else can explore for oil there" the oil companies fell silent.

they want more, more, more.

The good ones put it at the top of the article, so as you read the article you can factor in that the guy who wrote it is paid well over $100,000 to promote big oil.

Just for giggles, and because I like proving you wrong as you make it so easy, I quickly went to the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, S.F Chronicle, LA Times, NY Times and WaPo, and with the exception of the NYT which places it over to the side with a nice little bio on their site, they ALL--surprise, surprise--put the background of their guest columnists, not to be confused with syndicated columnists, at the bottom.

So, Lee, those are some pretty "good ones"--unless, of course, those papers aren't liberal enough for you.

(BTW, no news outlet is required to divulge a guest editor's salary, either. And it's probably more like $500K given his title.)