Drilling in ANWAR is joke
By Susan Wilson
One of the good things about large extended families is that you can always find someone who knows something about any topic. One of my cousins has worked in the oil industry for years as a geologist evaluating different areas for oil exploration.
According to him, when ANWAR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) was evaluated by the oil industry, there wasn’t enough potential oil there to bother with. From their estimation, no oil existed in the area or so little that it wasn’t worth going after.
His take on the current push by the administration to drill in ANWAR is that the government is creating false hope in the American Public. By saying that we still have this vast field of oil in ANWAR then American’s won’t panic.
Unfortunately, even if ANWAR is opened to drilling, no reputable oil company would waste money drilling for oil. Oil drilling and extraction is very expensive and not something that oil companies want to enter into lightly. They would much prefer to concentrate on areas where they are assured of getting good return for their money.
Except for promoting the building of roads in a formerly off limits area, it is unclear what really will be achieved by opening up ANWAR to “oil exploration”. Especially in the wake of the recent U. S. Supreme Court verdict reducing the Exxon Valdez fine to a paltry $5 million dollars (three days worth of profits) from the initial 1994 award of about $5 billion (later reduced to $2.5 billion by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals).
For those of you who may not have been born in 1989, the Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil into the fishing waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Over 32,000 plaintiffs had been waiting for the Supreme court to issue their verdict. For almost 20 years, Alaskans have been waiting for payment for the damage committed by the spilled oil. In the end, Exxon won.
Now the government is talking about opening ANWAR up for oil exploration that oil companies have already determined is useless. With the reduction of the Exxon verdict, any damage done by less reputable oil companies will be nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Drilling in ANWAR is nothing more than false hope for a fool’s quest, but if it works politically, who cares?
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July 3rd, 2008
The other thing about extended families is there are people who proudly spout nonsense. I’d ask him about the secret car that runs on water the oil companies have been squashing for decades next time you see him.