How WN Will Beat US (And Others_

[N965VJ]

<SNIP> Also why is the entire East coast off limits for drilling but the gulf and So Cal isn't?

There’s currently a ban on oil rigs within 125 miles of the Florida coastline, but you never hear the tree huggers complain about the Cuban rig that’s only 60 miles off the coast.

I used to have a home in TPA that was a ten minute walk from the beach, and even if I was still down there I would not cry NIMBY.

I also don’t think eliminating the ban would stop Canadian tourists coming down and looking like boiled lobsters on the second day of their vacation or fat Europeans walking into Publix wearing nothing but flip-flops and Speedos.

Did I ever tell you guys how much I love tourists?

 

[sharktooth]

You do realize that drilling in Anwar would equate to having Dulles Airport in Virgina and nothing else. Or another way I heard it discribed was a stamp on a football field. No way that will cuase significant enviro harm. Not to mention Anwar is not beautiful Alaska like ANC or Denali, it is much more baren.
Also why is the entire East coast off limits for drilling but the gulf and So Cal isn't?

I know you are not a moron, but, why do you speak like one? So, you are willing to despoil a bit of wilderness, for, what? An oil company's bottom line?

Go to Anwar, see the maps the drooling oil companies have drawn up divvying that wilderness area, then, try to reconcile why the Alaskans themselves do not want drilling there. Why the drilling "might" lower prices about 2.6 cents per gallon at the pump, max. Why the pristine acreage will be spoiled forever for, at most, a miniscule addition to an addiction that only "cold turkey" will cure.

and, who says the gulf and SoCal is not off limits to new drilling? Do you even try to learn anything before posting?

There is an Israeli company with offices in SJC that has a prototype plant using bacteria to produce fuel. Airbus, by 2020, wants to have airliners using bio-fuels for 30% of jet fuel.

Why prolong the addiction?

The only losers will be the oil companies who refuse to adapt. Like manufacturers of buggy whips, their time is passing.

 

[sharktooth]

There’s currently a ban on oil rigs within 125 miles of the Florida coastline, but you never hear the tree huggers complain about the Cuban rig that’s only 60 miles off the coast.

Uh, because it is in Cuban waters? Are you advocating yet another criminal invasion of a yet another sovereign territory? The "tree-huggers" do complain, but, what would you have them do about it?

Until US citizens stop politicians using Cubans as political currency the US trade embargoes will always be detrimental to the US citizen. The rest of the world, not nearly so much.

 

[SolidCactus]

But you know what, there is one key difference between what SWA would, vs the legacy carriers if SWA lost their bet on the hedges... They would raise their prices.

I flew a Southwest flight last week with 30 passengers on it. We each had our own row. Southwest is profitable. They set their prices based on cost. Not capacity. Last year, I flew a Southwest flight with NINE passengers on it. US would have sold that flight with $79 tickets. Both senarios most likely lost money, but the Southwest model would lose less. Think of the labor needed to service a flight with 130 unprofitable tickets sold, instead of nine...

Popular to contrary belief, SWA is NOT the cheapest ticket in the markets that they serve.

 

[vantheman63]

Popular to contrary belief, SWA is NOT the cheapest ticket in the markets that they serve.

Thats a good point....I bought tix for ABQ-PVD for August 17....and I picked WN....and it wasn't the least expensive ticket. I could have flown US, CO's schedule didn't work.

But I picked WN, as a (soon to be former) CP. And I bought "Business Select." Hardly the least expensive.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

Take this nugget of wisdom from a Texan with a BS Geology who, since his retirement from playing Army for a living, is back in the thrilling and never-dull oil & gas industry:

Drill. Drill in Alaska. Drill off Florida. Drill off California. Let folks play with the oil shales in the Rockies. Start squeezing as much oil out of the earth as you can.

Folks have gotten much, much better about environmental damage over the years. You could have a dozen rigs in Tampa Bay and the beaches would not look like Jiffy Lube had emptied the pits upon them. The industry is not perfect but it knows the liability of making a mess thus everyone does take environmentally conscious operations seriously.

I don't buy the "the price will only go down (take your pick) a penny....2.6 cents....a dime." Besides....even if the prices didn't go down.....we will eventually need the oil. Better to get at it now while the cost to drill is just outrageous. In ten years the cost to drill will probably be incredibly outrageous.

If the government announced today that they were going to dump about 2MM barrels of oil a day out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and folks could drill.....I think prices would plunge and speculators who have run the price up like they have would get burned, big time.

And once the price fell WN would get busy buying their hedges for 2010 and 2011 and 2012.

Yes, it would take 4 or 5 or maybe even 6 yrs before we started to see the oil from ANWR or Destin. But the actual source of oil, or even the supply...is not what's been driving the train on price. It has been the speculators and once they became aware that the US has decided to start actively looking for every drop of oil they can, their behaviors would change and the price would fall.

The run-up of oil prices in the late 70s and early 80s was followed by a glut once all the oil finds that higher prices had provided got to market. We're not likely to see a repeat of that...certainly not to the same degree....since in the late 70s/early 80s neither India nor Red China had the oil thirsty economies they do now. But we would see some relief, a lot of it, and we would see it quickly.

It is incredibly hypocritical for folks to act all put-out and in a snit because the Saudis won't crack the pipelines open full bore. I
d like to see higher production rates from them too....but we cannot expect it if we're not willing to drill on our lands.

 

[jimntx]

Because Ted Kennedy doesn't want the view from his deck in Hyannis spoiled by drilling rigs. :down:

First off, PB, the reason there is no drilling off the Northeast Coast is because there ain't no oil up there. Surely you remember the fiasco that Baltimore Canyon was off the coast of NJ! My company (at the time), Texaco, lost almost $100 million (IIRC) on that little venture, and we came up with less than a full barrel of oil. And, we weren't the only oil company drilling there. Seismic readings can only tell you so much. At some point you have to put a drill in the ground to find out if there is product under there.

Second, the reason that there is no drilling even on the Gulf of Mexico side of Florida is because of a certain Bush brother who was Governor of Florida at the time the oil companies found what appeared to be extensive oil deposits on the Gulf side of Florida. Seems Jeb and the two Republican Senators from Florida convinced the EPA and all that the area was entirely too ecologically sensitive to drill. They thought off the coast of California around the Sea Otter habitats and especially off the coast of Texas were much safer areas for drilling.

 

[vantheman63]

Take this nugget of wisdom from a Texan with a BS Geology who, since his retirement from playing Army for a living, is back in the thrilling and never-dull oil & gas industry:

Drill. Drill in Alaska. Drill off Florida. Drill off California. Let folks play with the oil shales in the Rockies. Start squeezing as much oil out of the earth as you can.

Folks have gotten much, much better about environmental damage over the years. You could have a dozen rigs in Tampa Bay and the beaches would not look like Jiffy Lube had emptied the pits upon them. The industry is not perfect but it knows the liability of making a mess thus everyone does take environmentally conscious operations seriously.

I don't buy the "the price will only go down (take your pick) a penny....2.6 cents....a dime." Besides....even if the prices didn't go down.....we will eventually need the oil. Better to get at it now while the cost to drill is just outrageous. In ten years the cost to drill will probably be incredibly outrageous.

If the government announced today that they were going to dump about 2MM barrels of oil a day out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and folks could drill.....I think prices would plunge and speculators who have run the price up like they have would get burned, big time.

And once the price fell WN would get busy buying their hedges for 2010 and 2011 and 2012.

Yes, it would take 4 or 5 or maybe even 6 yrs before we started to see the oil from ANWR or Destin. But the actual source of oil, or even the supply...is not what's been driving the train on price. It has been the speculators and once they became aware that the US has decided to start actively looking for every drop of oil they can, their behaviors would change and the price would fall.

The run-up of oil prices in the late 70s and early 80s was followed by a glut once all the oil finds that higher prices had provided got to market. We're not likely to see a repeat of that...certainly not to the same degree....since in the late 70s/early 80s neither India nor Red China had the oil thirsty economies they do now. But we would see some relief, a lot of it, and we would see it quickly.

It is incredibly hypocritical for folks to act all put-out and in a snit because the Saudis won't crack the pipelines open full bore. I
d like to see higher production rates from them too....but we cannot expect it if we're not willing to drill on our lands.

Well said...err....typed....

 

[N965VJ]

<SNIP> Until US citizens stop politicians using Cubans as political currency the US trade embargoes will always be detrimental to the US citizen. The rest of the world, not nearly so much.

Hey, I think the trade embargo only hurts the average Cuban citizen, but try telling that to the folks in MIA.

First off, PB, the reason there is no drilling off the Northeast Coast is because there ain't no oil up there.

I think it was wind farms that the NIMBYs on Martha’s Vineyard were upset about.

 

[jimntx]

Hey, I think the trade embargo only hurts the average Cuban citizen, but try telling that to the folks in MIA.


I think it was wind farms that the NIMBYs on Martha’s Vineyard were upset about.

Have you ever been near one of those things? I thought they were a good idea until I was around one. They are not as quiet as I would have imagined. And, they DO kill birds when they are spinning at high speed.

Why put them near crowded urban areas (and I think that we can all agree that Martha's Vineyard does not fit your regular definition of rural) when we have areas in the western U.S. that have miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles?

How do the NIMBYs on the Vineyard different from the NIMBY retirees on the west coast of Florida who vote Republican and violently oppose oil drilling within sight of their beach? The truth of the matter is that most Americans in this day and age are NIMBYs on one subject or another. We all agree that a solution is needed (regardless of problem), but you must not in any way, shape, form or fashion require me to change my life one iota to accomplish the solution. Put the wind farm in Kansas! Dorothy's story proves that those people are used to having all that noise and wind.

 

[Travelpro72]

I work with so many people that for being in the airline industry are basically clueless. I LOVE when I hear that WN will have their day and that time is running out for them. Bottom line here is WN has always done right by their employees and they run a successful company. THAT along with smart hedging keeps them where they are. Oh and when they say "the majors" isn't WN now? I'd seem to think so. Most legacy carriers blow in one sense or another and US is right at the top of the list.

 

[vantheman63]

The truth of the matter is that most Americans in this day and age are NIMBYs on one subject or another. We all agree that a solution is needed (regardless of problem), but you must not in any way, shape, form or fashion require me to change my life one iota to accomplish the solution.

I agree with this....at the end of the day, there are two things that can be surmized here....

1.) The current alternatives do not provide a viable (economical or aestheticly) solultion.

2.) The threshold of pain in prices hasn't yet been reached to where the average person says, "screw the birds, screw the sea shore, screw the wilderness in Alsaska." And it may not ever get there.

I've said this 700 times: "The only way we have a chance to get off oil is if it goes to $300 a barrel, overnight."

At that point, THEN it would be the catalyst for change. Right now, $150 a barrel is like a cut that needs stiches....it's painful, but not life threatening.

 

[jimntx]

Agreed. As long as the price goes up gradually, we adjust. I still can't believe that when I was in high school I could refill the 15 gal. tank on my Dad's Chrysler New Yorker for less than $5 (gas was $0.25/gal). And, today, I feel fine if I find gas in Dallas for less than $3.85/gal.

When I worked for the state of Texas years ago, I had a female supervisor who had been a Lt. Cmdr in the US Navy during WWII. She once said that from what she could see, the American people are totally incapable of denying themselves anything regardless of the effect on others (or themselves if the negative payback is at least 2 weeks in the future) even in times of war. She told me that during WWII people even cheated on their ration books.

Today, how much do you think the average citizen even considers the long term effects of the wars in the Middle East? My guess: not so much.

 

[N965VJ]

Have you ever been near one of those things?

Yes, in both the States and Europe. Can’t say that I recall how they sounded, but then my ears are shot from too much rock & roll and flying around in the back of 737-200s and DC-9s. I really don’t know if they are actually efficient without any subsidies, or if they’re another form of Ethanol.

In the end, I believe fuel costs will come down next year just in time to save US from extinction. It sure won’t be from $2 Cokes.

 

[SolidCactus]

We need to drill for oil everywhere. Why? News Flash... Because the Middle East is unstable. Drilling will not make the price of oil go down. The price of oil is being caused by a bubble. The same way we had a housing bubble, a tech bubble, and after the oil bubble bursts, there will be another bubble. There are only so many places that the uber wealthy can put their money. They cause the bubbles.

Why drill? Because in a few years, what happens when Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz. The US will have a president that wants to "talk to Iran", Iran will be testing it's first nuclear weapon on Israel, and all the oil from the Middle East has to pass thru the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to have a lot more to worry about than the price of oil... (And I'm a hardcore Democrat - but Iran does scare me, and I don't think the next administration is going to take a hard line with Iran)...