HOUSTON -- ExxonMobil (XOM), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter. usatoday.com
Can someone explain to me why they need more tax cuts?
Reinvesting to get more oil...they will hold us hostage and charge us more if their profit is cut...we all invest in oil with our pensions and 401-K and it would hurt us...
I need a reason to understand why this policy is a long-term investment in the future of a baby born today.
Paul, as you and I agree, drilling for more domestic oil won’t substantially drop the price of oil. That’s because oil is a commodity and there’s a lot of oil in the world. We also know that we will continue to use oil as long as it’s the most economical way to meet our needs.
Brazil has discovered huge new offshore oil deposits. Iraq is accepting bids to boost their output to at least double what it is today. Cuba has agreed to let China drill off their shores. Russia is staking out drilling areas in the arctic. And the Middle East still has a lot of oil. Large supplies will still be available long after you and I are gone.
As for alternatives, the only option to replace gasoline that’s even remotely practical is hybrid cars. But they are more expensive and only a partial solution. All-electric cars are coming too, but a replacement for the family car is decades away. Of course they will require more electricity production. Natural gas could gradually be used for fleets of certain kinds of vehicles, but not for widespread replacements. But then you have drill for it and it still produces CO2. It’s all going to take a long time.
Oil prices will surely trend up, but it will be available. The only question is who is going supply it to the U.S. Personally, I want it to be drilled, pumped, transported, and refined by American workers. I want it to boost our economy, not China’s, Russia’s, or Saudi Arabia’s. I think that’s a great reason to drill, don’t you?
I don't think anyone will argue with you that we will need to drill. As the panic sets in, which will also act as an incentive, to poke and strip everything available.
The point at which you start drilling is moot. It's a limited resource. We consume far more than our proven resources and it will be dumped on a global oil market.
Your conclusions seem to be guided by this feeling of euphoria that these vast resources lie untapped. I just don't see that potential on the U.S. soil.
Maybe we will find an excuse to start a war with Canada, they have second-largest oil reserves in the world.
Or maybe we will get a clue and make up for decades of disregarding conservation, lost innovation - application and incentive programs for alternative energy to make up a larger percentage of energy use.
I don’t feel any euphoria over oil supplies. I’m just being realistic. Until alternative energies become affordable, most people won’t pay for them regardless of how many ads implore them to do so. I’d like to see the world shift to renewable energy, but I know it’s going to take a long time. We’re in a world where everyone has become terribly impatient. We have 24 hour news so we don’t have to wait for the newspaper to arrive. We can jump on the internet and have a unique widget delivered the next day. We see solar panels on the White House and we wonder why we don’t all have them by now. To me, the answer is quite simple and intuitively obvious. But then I’ve studied the technologies and the numbers.
The lack of conservation is driven by human nature. I know a couple that adamantly believes we need to act quickly to stop global warming. They recently went shopping for a new car for her and decided they wanted a small SUV. They selected the Toyota RAV4. But they also chose the V6 because they wanted the passing power. Note that they could have chosen the Ford Escape Hybrid, but they liked the Toyota better. And then there’s the Environmentalist-in-Chief and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore (Mr. don’t do as I do, do as I say) with his huge carbon footprint. Most people ultimately choose what makes their lives more pleasurable over the option to conserve.
If we want to accelerate the shift to renewable energies, we need a strong economy. All wealth in this country flows from business: wages, salaries, and tax revenues. That’s how we’ll be able to pay for the huge infrastructure to support wind power. Drilling for our own oil could make all the difference. Remember, when we boost the oil industry we also boost other industries from steel to restaurants. And I have no doubt that we can get enough oil off our shores and from Alaska to boost our economy for decades. The reason we don’t have more “proved reserves” offshore is that exploration has been blocked by Congress for decades. We know there’s oil there, but without exploratory wells, oil companies cannot legally classify the deposits as proved.