Bob's Blog

In the Daily Caller, Marlo Safi reports in part,

Oil prices plunged to below $1 a barrel Monday, and Goldman Sachs reportedly says U.S. oil prices could crash to near $0 a barrel as the industry is among many to take a demand hit due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The oil market faces a glut with nowhere to put physical barrels of crude, prompting some buyers in Texas to offer some oil streams for $2 a barrel, raising the possibility that producers may soon have to pay to relieve themselves of crude, Yahoo Finance reported Monday.

Read more here.

A massive oil discovery has been made in Alaska this last week which is considered to be the largest onshore find in 30 years according to CNN Money.

CNN Money reported: “The massive find of conventional oil on state land could bring relief to budget pains in Alaska brought on by slumping production in the state and the crash in oil prices.

The new discovery was made in just the past few days in Alaska’s North Slope, which was previously viewed as an aging oil basin.

Spanish oil giant Repsol and its privately-held U.S. partner Armstrong Energy announced the find on Thursday, predicting production could begin as soon as 2021 and lead to as much as 120,000 barrels of output per day…

…All of this is a big win for Alaska, which last year had to freeze hiring and limit state employee travel due to trouble in the oil industry. Alaska, which relies on oil and gas taxes for the vast majority of its state revenue, has been hit by the one-two punch of shrinking production from its mature fields and the fact that oil prices have been cut in half in recent years.”

U.S. dependence on foreign oil is already at a 30-year low according to Forbes. A discovery of this magnitude will certainly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil even further.

The largest oil deposit ever found in America was just discovered in Texas! Akin Oyedele reports at Business Insider,

The US Geological Survey said Tuesday that it found what could be the largest deposit of untapped oil ever discovered in America.

An estimated average of 20 billion barrels of oil and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are available for the taking in the Wolfcamp shale, which is in the Midland Basin portion of Texas' Permian Basin.

Based on a West Texas Intermediate crude oil price of $45 per barrel, those deposits are worth about $900 billion.

Read more here.

Yesterday Trump said this:

I have long said that we should have kept the oil in Iraq – another area where my judgement has been proven correct. According to CNN, ISIS made as much $500 million in oil sales in 2014 alone, fueling and funding its reign of terror. If we had controlled the oil, we could have prevented the rise of ISIS in Iraq – both by cutting off a major source of funding, and through the presence of U.S. forces necessary to safeguard the oil and other vital infrastructure. I was saying this constantly and to whoever would listen: keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil, I said – don’t let someone else get it.

If they had listened to me then, we would have had the economic benefits of the oil, which I wanted to use to help take care of the wounded soldiers and families of those who died – and thousands of lives would have been saved. This proposal, by its very nature, would have left soldiers in place to guard our assets. In the old days, when we won a war, to the victor belonged the spoils. Instead, all we got from Iraq – and our adventures in the Middle East – was death, destruction and tremendous financial loss.

Ann Althouse reacted,

It sounds extreme — especially "to the victor belonged the spoils." The idea should be that the oil should cover the expenses of liberating and protecting the people of Iraq.

Colorado state GOP chair Steve House reminds us of another reason to vote for Trump:

The miners have a specific message for Mr. Trump. They know that Hillary will kill mining as she has publicly stated. 1100 jobs lost in the past 3 years in western Colorado alone where families lost their $134,000 income producing the cleanest coal in America. We burn dirty coal while families and communities suffer which helps our environment how? When you vote remember that the livelihoods of many more miners and people who work in Oil and Gas are at stake. There is work to be done at the state and federal level to insure that we move forward with our greatest assets for immediate economic development so vote the ticket to insure these hard working families can take care of themselves as better strategies are put in place.

Did you know that the largest oil refinery in the United States is now owned by a Saudi company? Charles Kennedy of Oil Price.com writes in USA Today about the refinery, which is located in Port Arthur, Texas.

How have falling oil prices affected the finances of Saudi Arabia? Captain Capitalism writes,

First we have economic growth. This is NOT GDP, though the graph will look that way. It is YEAR OVER YEAR economic growth, ie- GDP growth. In 2011 and 2012 Saudi Arabia's economy was booming, logging a near one third growth rate for both years. Not 1/3%. 33%. Growth collapsed quickly in 2013 and 2014, entering a NEGATIVE 13% GDP for 2015. Of course, Western nations aren't accustomed to such volatility in their growth rates, but it still doesn't change the fact 2015 was a devastating year for Saudi Arabia.

Read more here.

When Barack Hussein Obama announced in Springfield, Illinois on February 10, 2007 that he was a candidate for president, he gave a speech. Myra Adams goes back to that speech to read the most salient points of his announced candidacy.

The first was to "build a more perfect union" borrowing a phrase from Springfield's own Abe Lincoln. In fact, according to Gallup, the nation is fifth most polarized now that at any time since 1953.

He also complained about mounting debts. In fact, Adams points out that

it is projected that by the time he leaves office, he will have accumulated debt equal to that of all previous presidents in U.S. history combined.

Adams links to this website to provide a graphic understanding of this debt.

In his speech Obama called for an end to poverty in this generation. In fact, there are five million people in poverty now than when he gave that speech.

When President Obama first stepped into the Oval Office, there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps. Now that number exceeds 46 million.

In the speech he called for universal health care. In fact,

Americans are stuck with an Obamacare legacy of higher premiums and deductibles for all. His signature program remains highly unpopular among 64 percent of Americans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What Obama neglected to mention in his 2007 announcement speech was that universal health care, in any form, comes with a sickening price tag.

Equally sickening were a number of politically charged zingers in his speech that were begging to be countered, such as, Let’s be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. So here is the rational explanation for his refusing to take action on the Keystone XL pipeline while justifying hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on Solyndra and other alternative-energy programs benefiting his political cronies.

Then Obama expresses his patriotism, saying, Most of all, let’s be the generation that never forgets what happened on that September day and confront the terrorists with everything we’ve got. Wouldn’t you love for the Pentagon to render a current opinion on that statement?

Obama ends his announcement speech saying, Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this earth. To that I say, “Kumbaya, Mr. President!” The potential for ushering in a “new birth of freedom on this earth” has never been less attainable, thanks to your avoiding the traditionally strong U.S. presidential leadership role, leaving a world power vacuum in which bad guys and turmoil have flourished.

So, happy eighth anniversary to a speech that started freshman senator Obama on his excellent adventure of over 215 golf outings (including one immediately after he had described as “appalling” the beheading of American journalist James Foley), non-stop fundraising, exotic vacations, and cavorting with celebrities.

His is a journey that will leave our next president with insurmountable problems at home and abroad.

read more here.

Walter Russell Mead and staff write:

President Obama’s geopolitical headaches would be raging migraines were it not for the new U.S. contributions to oil markets. And for that, this president has fracking to thank.

Go here to read how oil supply and demand affect the economies of Russia, Iran and the rest of us.

Mark P. Mills writes that

For all the coverage America's energy boom has gotten, there are still a lot of common assumptions about the oil and natural gas business that are flat out wrong.

We know the good news: Oil and gas production is rising so fast that U.S. dependence on imports will soon disappear. Growth in natural gas has made America the world's largest producer and could soon make us a huge exporter. In the past half-dozen years, America's hydrocarbon juggernaut has boosted our economy by hundreds of billions of dollars.

To keep the boom going, the federal government needs to keep out of the way, even as pressure grows to tighten energy-industry regulation. That's why is is important to unbundle three myths about the boom:

The profits are all going to Big Oil. Wrong. There are more than 20,000 small and midsize oil and gas firms in America, with a median size of 15 employees. They produce 75% of America's oil and gas and are responsible for nearly 100% of the boom.

Energy is an old, dirty business, not the future. Wrong, again. We're in a tech boom. What changed the game is the emergence of information-centric "smart" drilling, which relies on sensors, computers and control systems that, when combined with steerable horizontal drilling, fracking and a skilled work force, created the boom.

Oil jobs are in just a few boom towns. New jobs reach far beyond hard-hat work in a few obvious states such as Texas and North Dakota. For every job in the oil field, we find three or four created in everything from information services to education. In every one of the 10 states with increased hydrocarbon production, statewide employment growth has outperformed the nation for six years. Fact is, hydrocarbon-supported jobs are in many places you might not expect. California ranks second, behind Texas. Florida, New York, Illinois and Ohio are among the top oil and gas employers.

Investors and businesses around the world understand the opportunity. In 2012, the latest figures available, foreign firms invested $166 billion here.

The two fastest growing categories, petroleum refining and extraction, and hydrocarbon-based manufacturing, grew more than 40% annually between 2008 and 2012. The American Chemistry Council has mapped out over $100 billion in investments in manufacturing plants scheduled to come on line in a few years. These plants will generate more than 600,000 jobs immune to outsourcing.

If we want to keep our hydrocarbon boom going, there are two things the federal government could do. First, abandon the antiquated laws that restrict natural gas exports. More customers for U.S. gas mean more investment and more jobs. Second, resist the temptation to layer job-killing federal regulations on top of state efforts. States are doing the job just fine.

Read more here.