President declared 6 month moratorium on drilling fully knowing it will destroy the future oil drilling industry in this country for at least ten years. Another successful blow to the oil drilling industry in the entire United States to destroy the survival of America.
Just about all oil drilling companies and oil drilling related industries are going to go bankrupt if they do not go to other countries. The cost of a similar drilling rig is about $100 thousand a day sitting there.
Say "Hello to $10.00 per gallon gasoline". Write a letter to your president to thank him for this.
JM
6 month long Moratorium delivers a knock out blow to LA economy and a decade of no new drilling in the Gulf and in the United States
New Orleans - Jobs in the oil and gas industry account for about 10,000 paychecks in Louisiana. Paychecks some fear will disappear with a six month moratorium on new deep water drilling in the Gulf. Eric Smith of Tulane's Energy Institute explains, "These rigs will not stay in the Gulf and be idle. They are worth about a million dollars a day and they will go somewhere else. Likely locations will be West Africa or Brazil. Once they are there, there is such a drilling backlog we will never get them back. So this is not a six month moratorium. It is shutting down the Gulf of Mexico for some long period of time."
Smith puts the potential impact in perspective. The fishing and tourism industries together account for 4% of Louisiana's economy. Manufacturing is the state's largest employer at 17%. Drilling and mining come in second at 16%. He adds, "So this industry being shut down is the equivalent of four times the shut down of the fishing and tourism industry."
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungessor bent the president's ear about the moratorium when Mr Obama was in town last week. Nungessor said, "I said Mr President, when an airplane crashes it's a terrible tragedy. We lose hundreds of lives, but we don't punish all the airlines and ground them until we find out why their plane crashed."
Governor Jindal urges speed, "I think the consensus from our state is yes, we want the federal government to make sure they are regulating this industry properly. If they need to correct their own practices or mistakes or require better plans, then they should do that. But lets do that as quickly as possible because what we don't want is every extra day of that moratorium could potentially put thousands of our people out of work."
Eric Smith suggests an alternative, "I think there are some things you can do immediately that would not cost a lot of money or take a lot of time. You could have an independent certifier on board to say not only did they inspect it, they did the inspection according to MMS rules." He says MMS is a historically shorthanded, but Louisiana has a wealth of retired petroleum engineers he feels could quickly become on board rig inspectors rather than shut down an industry vital to a state already suffering.
