I want more light sweet oil coming from Texas hitting the refinery. If there is someone else who wants to bring their stuff here, so be it. I like our stuff since it practically needs little in the way of removing impurities.
I don't understand why people will yap about wanting cheap prices and than turn around and make themselves dependent on foreign sources of energy. We already have it here. So, don't worry about those refinery workers. As I stated, the Keystone project was temporary for jobs with building. The destination is already in place with manpower.
And i'll bet you that the oil won't stay underground forever on federal lands.
People making mountains out of molehills and willingly putting the foreign noose around their necks to be dependent on outside energy.
We should use up all the oil fast as possible so as to get to the next sustainable energy resource. There are better uses for oil than just putting it in our gas tanks.
Originally Posted by Precious_b
We're both on the same page on this issue, that is we agree on the principles. Please realize a lot of the refining capacity on the U.S. Gulf Coast is for heavier oils, that in large part come from places like Canada, Mexico, and formerly Venezuela. We process it into refined products and export a lot of it. There's no sense turning away that business, that benefits U.S. workers and U.S. companies. I know we're importing less Venezuelan and Mexican heavier crudes, and suspect we've got idle refining capacity as a result. That could have been replaced by crude from Keystone XL.
As to the oil staying underground forever, some of it will if you have a long term moratorium on drilling, and, to a lesser extent, leasing, even though the moratorium is lifted later on.
Part of this is because of what happens at the field level. For example, you might be able to double recovery of oil from a field by drilling injectors or converting producing wells to injection wells for water floods and enhanced recovery projects. But if well bores deteriorate and the producing wells are plugged and abandoned that won't happen.
And it's also true if you look at the bigger picture. The USA has always had high production and a very large number of wells compared to its reserves. This is because of our well developed infrastructure -- gas plants, pipelines, surface facilities, terminals, and finally service companies that provide personnel, supplies and equipment to drill and produce the wells. If you let those deteriorate and have to reconstruct it again, it's very wasteful, obviously. And you'll probably end up leaving oil in the ground that otherwise would be produced.
Now you may say, like valued contributor WTF, that I'm being paranoid. But you put the Progressives in power of the presidency and Congress for about 10 or 15 years, and this will happen. Or worse. They want to ban fracking. That would take our production to a fraction of the current level in a couple of years.