“Your companies need to work with my Administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address the crisis,” Joe Biden in an open letter to oil companies. The letter went on to accuse refineries of capitalizing on the war between Russia and Ukraine, gleaning record-high profits while Americans suffer record-high pain at the pump.
President Joe Biden isn’t trying to bring down gas prices. In fact, he’s doing just the opposite. This is pretty rich coming from the guy that vowed to put them out of business.
As a candidate, Biden said, “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.”
What’s really happening.
But while access to crude has not evaporated as the US intended, refinery capacity continues to lag. This has driven up gasoline prices to higher peaks than crude.
Nor is increasing capacity an easy affair. As Business Insider reported this week:
At the heart of the crisis is the fallout from the pandemic. As COVID rocked the world economy, energy consumption plunged, and many refineries shuttered operations.
Analysts at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, estimate that 3 million barrels a day of refinery capacity shut down in 2020 and 2021.
And once you shutter a refinery, it can be hard to get it running again.
“You introduce a lot of operational issues that come back to haunt you a few months later,” Claudio G
Shutting down the global economy over a little germ has consequences. We were told it was no big deal. When the US forcibly closed businesses and issued stay-at-home orders, many refineries became unprofitable and closed. Shutting down US oil production, killing the Keystone Pipeline, and then stopping Russian oil imports has created much pain for ordinary citizens.
The usual Democrat response has been to place the blame on imagined “price gouging” or “greedflation.” Of course, the administration has been committed to crippling fossil fuel production for the duration, and now we are all paying the price for that policy.
Joe Biden sounds just like Joe Stalin or Mao Tse Tung with his belief that he, Joe Biden, is the only one in America responsible for not what the economy is, but what Joe, like Joe Stalin and Mao, with his “Great Leap Forward,” which is like Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better,” thinks it ought to be, for the “good” of the American people, and Joe, who is incapable of introspection, being a mental mediocrity who is short-sighted and a shallow thinker, Democrat qualities in their presidents, refuses to recognize that the mess we are no9w facing is of his doing, not Putin’s and not the oil companies:
Rigzone
“Oil Industry Responds to Biden Letter”
by Andreas Exarheas | Rigzone Staff
Thursday, June 16, 2022
The American Petroleum Institute (API) and ExxonMobil Corporation have both responded to a recent letter sent by U.S. President Joe Biden to oil refineries.
“While we appreciate the opportunity to open increased dialogue with the White House, the administration’s misguided policy agenda shifting away from domestic oil and natural gas has compounded inflationary pressures and added headwinds to companies’ daily efforts to meet growing energy needs while reducing emissions,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers said in the API’s response.
end quotes
But Joe being a bone-headed autocrat in the style of Joe Stalin will neither accept that nor understand that, which takes us back for more, to wit:
“I reinforced in a letter to President Biden and his Cabinet yesterday [June 14] ten meaningful policy actions to ultimately alleviate pain at the pump and strengthen national security, including approving critical energy infrastructure, increasing access to capital, holding energy lease sales, among other urgent priorities,” he added in the response.
“Ahead of his travel to the Middle East next month, we urge the President to prioritize unlocking U.S. energy resources – that are the envy of the world – instead of increasing reliance on foreign sources,” Sommer continued.
end quotes
To which the air-head who is now Joe’s chief propaganda minister came back in an article on FOX Business News titled “Jean-Pierre on drilling more in the US: ‘We don’t need to do that'” by Anders Hagstrom on 16 June 2022, as follows with this mindless drivel which is her forte, to wit:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shot down calls to increase oil drilling in the U.S. Thursday, saying the country doesn’t need it.
Jean-Pierre made the comments in response to questions from Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy.
Doocy pressed Jean Pierre to explain why President Biden’s administration is seeking to alleviate skyrocketing gas prices by calling on oil companies to increase productivity at refineries instead of calling for more drilling.
Jean-Pierre argued that oil companies cut refinery capacity at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and have yet to increase that capacity back to pre-pandemic levels.
Biden argues this, combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is causing the increase in gas prices.
“Why not just drill more here in the U.S., though?” Doocy asked.
“Because we don’t need to do that,” Jean-Pierre responded.
“What we need [oil companies] to do is, with the oil that’s out there, we need them to refine that oil so that the capacity can go up and that prices would go down.”
The exchange comes days after Biden sent a letter threatening oil companies with executive intervention if they do not increase capacity at their refineries.
Biden blamed oil companies for running “historically high profit margins” even as Americans experience surging gas prices.
“There is no question that Vladimir Putin is principally responsible for the intense financial pain the American people and their families are bearing,” Biden wrote.
“But amid a war that has raised gasoline prices more than $1.70 per gallon, historically high refinery profit margins are worsening that pain.”
“Your companies and others have an opportunity to take immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel and other refined product you are producing,” he continued.
“My administration is prepared to use all reasonable and appropriate Federal Government tools and emergency authorities to increase refinery capacity and output in the near term, and to ensure that every region of this country is appropriately supplied.”
Biden’s letter does not offer a timeline for when his administration would resort to emergency powers, threatening only to do so in the “near term.”
end quotes
And there is Joe the Stalin-esque autocrat flexing his dictatorial muscles there as he threatens to nationalize the oil industry and put it under the control of him and the pack of idiots, mental defectives, and just plain ******* morons who comprise his inner circle, and that takes us to another FOX news article titled “Biden deflects blame for high gas prices, Vivek Ramaswamy slams his ‘senseless’ energy policy” by Gabriel Hays on 17 June 2022, where we had as follows to counter the drivel of Karine Jean-Pierre, to wit:
Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box Friday morning, author and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy blasted the Biden administration for blaming oil companies for current high gas prices and less oil production.
The businessman reminded viewers that less oil production had always been a “specific policy aim” of the Biden administration, before calling the current White House energy policy “senseless.”
The businessman agreed with Kernan’s point, claiming, “I find it ironic that the Biden administration is now blaming oil companies for producing less oil when this was an explicit policy aim, one of the top policy aims of the administration.”
Throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Biden promised to transition American energy away from fossil fuels.
During a trip to Tokyo, Japan last month, the president also mentioned that current high gas prices represent “incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger, and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.”
Ramaswamy continued, “And you can listen to John Kerry this week, saying that we absolutely should not be drilling for more oil.”
The entrepreneur then slammed the Biden administration for trying to get the world’s dictators to supply us with energy over constructing the pipeline between America and Canada.
“Let’s keep in mind that Canada is a democratic nation and ally and instead you have this administration now, shamefully in my opinion, begging dictators from countries like Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to produce more oil.”
end quotes
Note to Vivek: Joe is begging other dictators because like birds of a feather, dictators flock together.
And once again, thanks to the Cape Charles Mirror for being here for us common people to counter this absolute horse**** and bull**** coming at us in a blizzard from the morons who now inhabit Washington. D.C., morons like Joe Biden, who has never worked a real job in his life, having been a senator in Washington, where nothing is real and everything is a fantasy, for 36 years, and Joe’s energy secretary, Jennifer M. Granholm, who knows ****-all about drilling for oil, and refining oil, and Joe’s new chief propaganda minister Karine Jean-Pierre, who knows even less about producing oil than the nothing that either Joe Biden or Jennifer Granholm, who after two terms as governor, joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley as a Distinguished Professor of Practice in the Goldman School of Public Policy, focusing on the intersection of law, clean energy, manufacturing, policy, and industry while also serving as an advisor to the Clean Energy Program of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
According to her bio posted on the U.S. Department of Energy website, Joe’s Jennifer will lead DOE in helping America achieve President Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 by advancing cutting-edge clean energy technologies, creating millions of good-paying union clean energy jobs, and building an equitable clean energy future.
Secretary Granholm will also oversee DOE’s core missions of promoting American leadership in scientific discovery, maintaining the nuclear deterrent and reducing nuclear danger, and remediating the environmental harms caused by legacy defense programs.
So knowing nothing about how oil and gas are produced makes her the prime candidate to be put in charge of getting more oil and gas in America, according to the way things are done in Washington. D.C., the swamp where the denizens are fools, idiots, and morons.
Q. Does the fact that the United States government has issued leases for oil and gas EXPLORATION guarantee that there is either oil or gas on the leased land?
A. Of course not, and only a moron in Washington, D.C. who knows absolutely nothing would think that.
Q. If you sink a well on leased land, will oil start flowing from it, like it was water?
A. Of course not, and only a moron in Washington, D.C. who knows absolutely nothing would think that.
Q. Can any jackass off the street operate a refinery?
A. Of course not, and only a moron in Washington, D.C. who knows absolutely nothing would think that.
As to leases, if we go to a Bloomberg Law article titled “Oil, Gas Industry Stockpiled Drilling Leases Before Biden ‘Pause’” on Jan. 28, 2021, we have as follows on that issue, to wit:
There’s a good reason many stockpiled leases remain undeveloped: there may be no oil and gas to be found there, or companies discover that it’s not economically feasible to drill, said Angela Franklin, a partner at Holland and Hart LLP in Salt Lake City who represents industry clients.
“We don’t get to pick and choose where the oil is located,” she said, adding that there’s a “tremendous amount of acres that is not developed and may never be developed” because companies haven’t found oil or gas.”
“It’s also possible companies have leases on too little land in one place to justify drilling there, she said.
end quotes
But of course, those are facts and Joe Biden and the fools and morons in his administration do not go by facts – they go by their guts, most likely stomach gas generated from eating crap food, and their emotions, which are affected by the stomach gas they have from eating crap food.
As far as they are concerned, the fact that an oil company has a lease guarantees an ocean of oil just waiting to be pumped, and the fact that the leases aren’t being drilled is because of oil company greed, which greedy politicians project onto the oil companies on the assumption that everybody is as greedy as they are, which takes us to a Fox News story titled “Biden called out over warning to Big Oil as energy secretary exercises electric car stock options” by Charles Creitz on 15 June 2022, as follows:
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm reportedly exercised $1.6 million in stock options with an electric vehicle technology firm as she and President Biden urge action on climate change while Americans face $5 per gallon on unleaded 87 octane.
n “The Five,” host Jeanine Pirro further reported on Granholm’s $1.6 million options exercise, saying she and others in the administration are “conning” the American people.
“They don’t feel our pain.”
“They’re giving us the runaround with a letter to the oil industry and getting a meeting,” Pirro said.
“Last month, Biden canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease sales pending before the Department of Interior.”
The former Michigan Democratic governor famously guffawed when a journalist previously asked her about a plan to curb high energy prices.
Her fellow Michigan native, Sen. Deborah Stabenow, also bragged during a hearing this week that she was able to bypass all of the high-price gas stations in her drive to Washington because she had finally acquired the electric car she was waiting on.
end quotes
Which takes us to an American Petroleum Institute (API) article titled “The Red Herring of Unused Leases” by Kevin O’Scannlain on March 4, 2022, to wit:
Let’s address two claims heard about American natural gas and oil production amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.
The first, by some members of the Biden administration, including White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday, is that American oil and natural gas producers are sitting on hundreds of unused federal leases and thus do not need access to more.
Psaki has made the claim about “unused” federal leases before.
It has become a line the White House pivots to when pressed to explain why it isn’t doing more to support American oil and gas production – with soaring demand putting upward pressure on prices and with much of Europe at the mercy of its top energy provider, Russia.
Key facts about federal leases:
* The law already requires companies to either produce oil and/or gas on leases or return the leases to the government – the so-called “use it or lose it” provision – generally in the first 10 years.
* When a company acquires a lease, it makes a significant financial investment at the beginning of the lease in the form of a non-refundable bonus bid and pays additional rent until and unless it begins producing.
* For federal onshore, the Mineral Leasing Act prevents any one company from locking up unproductive excessive federal acreage.
* Developing a lease takes years and substantial effort to determine whether the underlying geology holds commercial quantities of oil and/or gas.
* The lengthy process to develop them from a lease often is extended by administrative and legal challenges at every step along the way.
The argument about “unused” leases is a red herring, a smokescreen for energy policies that have had a hamstringing effect on the world’s leading producer of natural gas and oil.
It suggests American producers have been motivated by a desire to manipulate the market during the current crisis in Europe.
This is false.
American oil and gas producers are able and willing to do their part to support American energy leadership, including providing energy that can help allies abroad.
Ultimately, energy policies affect the energy investment climate.
Specifically, they impact the ability of producers – typically accountable to shareholders – to take the risks involved in spending billions of dollars to find and develop oil and gas.
Mischaracterizing the way federal leases work does not help foster new investment and risk-taking.
end quotes
BUT it does mislead the public and in politics, especially Joe Biden’s politics, that is the name of the game.
And operating a refinery is not like driving a self-driving car, although the idiots and morons in Washington and the main-stream media who simply parrot their ignorant lines and publish their press releases are totally clueless about that, never having worked real jobs in the real world themselves.
As the saying goes, those who can do, and those who can’t either become career hack politicians like Joe Biden, or they go to work for the “legacy” media as lie repeaters and horse**** merchants, which takes us to an article titled “How to Become a Refinery Engineer” by Lindsey Thompson where we have as follows:
A refinery engineer plays a key role in getting fuel from the petroleum fields to the gas stations.
The refinery engineer designs equipment that removes the gas and oil from the ground and comes up with ways to extract gas and oil more effectively, efficiently and inexpensively.
He also creates drilling plans, tests gas and oil wells, and oversees well and equipment maintenance.
Becoming a refinery engineer starts with earning a four-year bachelor’s degree in petroleum, mechanical or chemical engineering.
To prep for that type of degree, a student should take plenty of math and science classes in high school, including algebra, calculus, biology, chemistry and physics.
The bachelor’s degree program in petroleum engineering uses both classroom and laboratory courses to teach engineering principles, geology and thermodynamics.
Some programs also include a co-op or internship to give the student real-world professional experience.
Beyond math and science abilities, a refinery engineer must develop certain skills like an analytic mind for looking at drilling plans to find potential problems.
Oil and gas companies rely on the refinery engineer to develop new ways of drilling, and so he must possess creativity and the ability to think outside of the box.
When problems arise, he must employ problem-solving skills to come with ways to fix the issue.
Some refinery engineers lead teams of other engineers and must have management and teaching skills, as well as oral and written communication skills.
All refinery engineers need a state license to practice.
Each state sets its own licensing requirements, but typically, most states have two licensing levels.
The engineer must hold an engineering degree from an accredited school and pass the fundamentals of engineering exam to earn a training license.
After he gains four years of professional experience under the supervision of a licensed engineer, he must then pass the professional engineering exam and earn a full license.
After earning the license, the engineer must maintain it by taking continuing education classes and renewing every few years, typically every one to three years.
end quotes
But understanding any of that, and here I am speaking as a licensed engineer who went through that process, is totally lost on the ignorant political hacks we now have not only running this country, but telling those who do run the country’s vital infrastructure how to do their jobs, which is a recipe for the chaos that now engulfs us.
Like something straight out of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
OIL & GAS JOURNAL
“Equinor drills duster near Korpfjell gas discovery”
June 17, 2019
Equinor Energy will plug exploration well 7335/3-1 in PL 859, which was drilled 8 km southeast of the 7435/12-1 (Korpfjell) natural gas discovery in the Barents Sea, and 435 km north of Vardo.
The well was dry.
The well—the second in the license—was drilled to a vertical depth of 4,268 m subsea drilled by Seadrill’s West Hercules semisubmersible drilling rig in 239 m of water.
It was terminated in the lower part of the Havert formation.
The primary exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Early Triassic Age (upper and lower part of the Havert formation).
The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum and reservoir rocks in the Snadd and Kobbe formations from the Middle to Late Triassic Age.
In the primary exploration target in the Havert formation, as well as in the overlying Klappmyss formation (from the Early to Middle Triassic Age), the well encountered sandy, but mainly tight intervals.
Sandy zones were encountered in the secondary exploration target in the Kobbe formation over an interval of about 125 m, these were also mainly tight.
In the Snadd formation, sandy intervals were encountered with poor reservoir quality.
Some thin sandstone layers in the Triassic revealed traces of gas.
Basement Biden, life in the basement, a real basement kind of guy.