No Runny Eggs

(H/T – JiangxiDad)

I usually don’t do two of these in a week, but it’s not every day that we hear of East Coast shale. Investor’s Business Daily reports that New York Governor David Patterson (yes, he is a Dem) wants to go get the natural gas contained in the Marcellus Shale formation. This formation, which covers the souther portion of New York, the western part of Pennsylvania, almost the entirety of West Virginia, the eastern portion of Ohio, and portions of neighboring states, is estimated to hold as much as 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or 65 years’ worth of domestic natural gas production.

Naturally, the envirowhackos that want to prevent this exploitation are whining that the method that would be used to get the natural gas, fracking, uses a lot of water, and could damage the aquifers that supply New York City with drinking water. IBD explodes both halves of that, pointing out that fracking has already been done in the area with no aquifer damage, and that fracking requires less water than ethanol production.

I echo IBD’s call to Gov. Patterson – “Drill, Patterson, drill.”

(H/T for the concept – Jessi Olson – H/T for the article – Carol Platt Liebau)

Long-term reader of this blog may remember a weekly series that I borrowed from Jessi Olson called “Drill Here, Drill Now Tuesday” in response to the ludicrously-high gas prices of last summer. We both called for increased domestic oil drilling.

The prices may not be quite as bad this summer, but it’s not for a lack of trying by the Obama administration. At every turn, from refusing to explore the possibility of offshore drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to a rescinding of existing permits to tap the oil shale out west, they have tried to squeeze the life out of the domestic oil industry. In fact, the Department of the Interior attempted to take a court-ordered ban of new drilling in Alaska and have that apply nationwide, only to be told by the court that it only applied to Alaska.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Export-Import Bank has issued a $2 billion “preliminary committment” letter to Brazilian state-owned Petrobras so it can exploit the Tupi oil field. I have to wonder whether that is merely because it isn’t in American waters, it involves a state-owned enterprise, or both.

Revisions/extensions (4:36 pm 8/18/2009) – Ed Morrissey dug up a Bloomberg piece from Friday on The Left’s Moneybag George Soros changing to a higher-dividend position in Petrobras. Do remember that The Chicago Way involves rewarding one’s benefactors.

This was started by Jessi Olson back when gas was over $4/gallon. Despite the fact that gas is currently under $2/gallon, I’ll continue to do this on a more-or-less regular basis until the underlying message sinks into the collective cement blocks that pass for heads amongst the members of the bipartisan Party-In-Government.

My price for gas – $1.899/gallon outside the bunker

Today, I will focus on a different aspect of oil – heating oil. As I type, heating oil is rocketing off the floor of about $1.20/gallon established last month, up to a current level of $1.64/gallon. Yes, that is below where it was this time last year (somewhere around $2.60/gallon), and well below the mid-summer spike of about $4.15/gallon, but that drop was a result of the temporary opening of places like the outer continental shelf to oil exploration. The Democrats are already sharpening their knives to slay that opening, and the current surge in oil and gas prices is proof we are still at the ragged-high edge of the demand/supply-price curve.

Worse, Ed Morrissey passes along a report that friend-to-the-Left Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will no longer be sending his suitable-only-for-heavy-oils-like-heating-oil crude over here for “free”. The cynical side of me says that won’t return because he got what he wanted out of that “investment”; kindred spirits in charge of everything. Even if I weren’t cynical, the fact remains that CITGO isn’t in the charity business anymore at a time when costs are going up.

Do you really want to be dependent on the whims of a tyrant who can’t even keep his own country powered? If not, then I have three words for you – “Drill baby, drill!”

This was started by Jessi Olson of Wake Up America back when most of the country was off-limits to oil exploration. I’ve sort of fallen off the wagon once the off-shore ban expired, and really fell off after the election.

Price of regular unleaded in south-suburban Milwaukee – $1.899

There is actually some hopeful news today, which is why I brought this thing in from the dustbin. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Interior Department has finalized the rules for opening up the Mountain West’s oil shale reserves. Royalties will start at 5%, then increase by 1 point a year after the 5th year of commercial exploitation to the standard 12.5%. Also, 49% of those royalties will be shared with the state in which a particular mine is.

Naturally, the no-drill crowd is all up in arms, but at least they have to actively reverse course now to get oil back up their dream of $140+/bbl and gas to their $4-$10/gallon dream.