Oil

[Stewy]

(03-03-2022, 08:31 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Biden-Desperately-Needs-To-Bring-Oil-Prices-Down.html

“There are those who say that Biden is content to see the prices of traditional fossil fuels rise in order to narrow the pricing differential between them and their more costly ‘green’ alternatives. However, underlining how often and how quickly such lofty principles disappear in the cold light of hard political self-interest, the U.S. Land Administration Committee released data at the beginning of 2022 showing that Biden in his first year as president issued 35 percent more permits for drilling oil and gas wells than his predecessor, Donald Trump, in his first year.”

Somebody is lying to me (not saying it’s you)

35% more permits for oil and gas drilling than trump in his first year. And all I hear from the GOP is Biden caused this? Things don’t add up. Almost like it’s another misinformation campaign. With support from big oil who is lined their pockets at the expense of the average American last year.

I don't think anyone is lying, but I think the CNBC article author completely F'd the numbers, which were quoted correctly by the oilprice.com article.  What the CNBC article quoted made no statistical sense.  Comparing 1st year to 1st year and the same total percent over the same time makes INFINITELY more sense that the CNBC article that compared permits per month to Trumps total over 3 years.  I'll say the CNBC person just didn't know what they were talking about, but flailing away trying to sensationalize and make themselves sound smart.

Now....issuing drilling permits is not really a sign of the POTUS supporting or not supporting the industry.  It is a sign of increasing and stabilized oil prices, rig count and opportunities.  i can elaborate on this if you like, but basically trumps first year of 2017 was 2 years after the oil price crash.  1/3 of hte industry had been laid off, drilling budgets had been slashed by 50% industry wide, Oil Shales which made so much money at 100$, were losing money at 40$.  Companies were going bankrupt

The POTUS can issue temporary pauses on drilling "Like Obama during the Macondo incident", but federal law prohibits the POTUS from stopping all drilling and all leasing.  Again there can be pauses like now for permitting and lease sales, but they HAVE to come back, by federal law.  POTUS will drag their feet as much as possible of course saying they need to sort out some mess and get their ducks in a row, but leasing will return on federal lands and waters.

As for the drilling permit issue, the following is the best explanation I've seen for it.  Essentially Biden issuing more permits is less about catering to O&G but the fact that he dragged his feet early, but only allowing a 10 person committee in Washington examine and issue permits, which built up a huge backlog.  It was then turned back over to BoLM (Bureau of Land Management), which normally does the job.  The accelerated permitting because of the backlog and basically didn't stop, which lead to more approvals during the first year of Biden's Administration.  As the article says, there weren't more drilling permits submitted, just extra taken out of the back log as the BLm increased the efficiency of doing their job.

https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/the-us-government-speeds-up-drilling-permit-approvals/

Quote:And meanwhile, some lower-profile actions from the administration have been more favourable for oil and gas producers. The decision on ANWR followed soon after a separate move relating to Alaska that angered environmental campaigners and pleased the industry’s supporters. The administration argued in a court case that ConocoPhillips’ Willow project should be allowed to proceed, despite opposition from conservation and indigenous groups. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator for Alaska, said she was pleased that the administration was “committed to supporting the project moving forward”, while Greenpeace USA described the intervention as “a serious misstep”.

More broadly, after a sharp slowdown for a couple of months while authorisations to drill on federal lands had to be approved by a small group of senior officials in Washington, the government has resumed awarding permits at a brisk pace. In February and March of 2021, an average of 254 applications for permit to drill on federal lands in the Lower 48 states were approved each month, well down from the average of 386 per month in fiscal year 2020. But in April, the number of approvals jumped to 671 for the month, almost 75% more than the monthly average for 2020. The sharp increase does not appear to have been a result of more companies seeking permits: the number of new applications went down. Instead, it appears that officials at the Bureau of Land Management are making up for lost time.
“With approval powers back at the BLM offices, the data implies processes are back to business as usual,” said Pablo Prudencio, Wood Mackenzie’s senior research analyst for the Lower 48. “And the agency might even be looking to put a dent in the 5,000-plus backlog of pending federal drilling permit applications.”

So aside from the POTUS trying to be a pain in the ass in early 2021 by doing approvals in Washington, when the BLM was allowed to do their damn job, they accelerated approvals.  The funny thing is Biden caught hell for all the extra drilling permits, when all it was a backlog clean up.  He really has some shitty advisors.

So.....no one lied to you, but you read an article by someone who didn't know what they were writing about, screwed up some statistics and likely wouldn't have understood them if they had gotten it right.

Yes Biden is screwing with the industry as much as possible.
Yes NEW drilling permit applications have been down.
Yes more permits were approved during Biden's first year, but it was backlog clean up, not support of the industry.

What is important to realize is that the management of the BLM and Department of Interior changes with each administration, but the employees themselves are long term govt employees.  They support the industry, as it gives them jobs.  Thus it would not surprise me at all, if they purposely unloaded the backlog to thumb their noses at the POTUS.  Damn funny if you ask me considering Biden paid the political price for being a dick.