With all those SUVs driving around my town with "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" bumper stickers, imagine my shock at this two paragraph brief buried in the biz section of my daily newspaper.
"Rig Count Drops Most in 15 Years"
"The number oil and natural gas rigs operating in the U.S. fell this week by the most in 15 years, according to data published by Baker Hughes Inc.
"Rigs exploring for or producing oil or gas declined by 98, or 5.7 percent, to 1,623..."
OK, so I'm not really shocked. This was totally predictable when the price at the pump dropped from $4 to $1.50 a gallon. At lower prices those marginal wells are no longer profitable and get shut down. And exploration becomes seen more as a cost than an investment by companies with their eye on quarterly profits, not longterm solutions.
But a couple of points to be made from this news. They are pretty damn obvious, but never seemed to get picked up by the media while everyone was debating whether to open our coasts to oil companies.
First, oil companies have no incentive to lower prices for consumers. As the price falls they will restrict production to try to keep prices high. As prices rise they will raise production to take advantage of higher prices.
Oil companies have no incentive to break our dependence on foreign oil. We just shut down 6 percent of domestic wells in one week. If nothing else, this should expose any lip service from the industry that they want to reduce foreign imports of oil as a lie.
Decisions made quickly in a time of "crises" are rarely the best. Now we've committed to risking environmental catastrophes on our most pristine coastlines and marine habitats forever in response to a crises that passed in a couple of months. It's shame we sacrificed our last few, most precious areas, and got steamrolled by the oil industry and their GOP friends.
Shutting 5.7 percent of U.S. wells in one week - I know these are largely the least productive wells and exploration wells - but I have to wonder if that much oil would even be replaced by drilling off the coasts.
My final point (another pretty obvious one): All those people with "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" stickers on their cars are wrong.