How could drilling for oil off of the Florida coast not lower the cost of gasoline?

Question

after all do you think that shipping of oil is not a factor in price ?via .barging boats ect.

Answer 1

Having more domestically produced oil will increase security.

Having more cheap oil will lower prices.

BUT:

Floridian oil is not cheaper than Saudi oil so can't lower prices (oil prices are driven by taxes and other factors - any developer of oil in Florida isn't going to lose money by undercutting world prices).

Floridian oil would come on stream perhaps 10 years from now - it can't affect todays prices anyway.

Florida has approx. 4bn barrels of proven oil reserves. The US consumes close to 9bn barrels per year - even if all the oil from Florida was produced in 1 year (not likely!) it still wouldn't have a significant impact upon prices.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, summed it up when he said Bush was being cynical and the US cannot drill itself out of the problem: "The math is simple: America has just 3% of the world's oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil".

Answer 2

Shipping cost, plus there is an import tax. We rely on over 65% import to supply or needs. The oil componies pass on the over head to the consumer. If this contry could produce it's own oil, then we would not have to buy from other contries. There for setting our own price for our consumption. Congress has put it to the floor today, to pass a bill telling big oil to start production or they will loses there leases. And the Gov. will find someone that will produce our oil in our contry.

Answer 3

It would but the Left will let anything that might lower the price of oil. They like to blame it on Bush , and I don't think he has done enough . We need to let the Democrats know that that will cost them everything.

Answer 4

shipping oil from over seas  cost about 3.00 a barrel  ...you do the math.

Answer 5

They could gouge us because they know ow much we are willing to pay.

Answer 6

the fkng  libs and tree huggers are lying !more of ANY PRODUCT always lowers prices ! http://americansolutions.com/drillnow

Answer 7

What made you think our government was looking to lower the price of gas rather than keep serving record profits to the oil companies?

Answer 8

because of the quantity of oil..Suadi arabia is literaly a gold mine because of the quantity of oil they have..

Answer 9

it is gonna lower gas becasue were not buying foreign oil

Answer 10

You are talking about making sense.   You can not do that when you discuss this with tree huggers.   They do not think that way.

Answer 11

Drilling for oil off shore and in places like ANWR definitely will lower prices. We have way more oil than the liberals will admit, and probably many times our known resources that could be discovered if only the politicians get off their *** lift the ban on oil.

The republicans have one the best opportunities to fight their impending doom in this 2008 if they get together and make it a national campaign issue.

Drill here; Drill now; Pay less,

d**n right!!

Edit: I am sick and tired of the ignorant blaming Big Oil for the prices at the pump. Sure speculation plays a role, but remember they only guess on the price according by taking into account the leading indictors.

If you were a speculator and saw the idiots in congress holding the ban on oil, not allowing exploration for oil, sitting on their fat duff blaming Big Oil for every evil under the sun, and saying NAY to drilling. Which way would your speculate, UP or DOWN ?

Answer 12

Because we have lots and lots of oil already drilled - but we keep buying it from the arabs instead of using ours.

Answer 13

The U.S. is a net importer of oil and the market price includes transportation to the U.S. coast.

The quantity of oil that the U.S. imports is much more than any off-shore drilling is likely to contribute. Therefore producing off-shore oil might reduce the quantity of imported crude but will not be sufficient to lower the price. Why?

Only when the amount of oil produced domestically turns the U.S. into an exporter would the U.S. market price change from world price + transportation to world price - transportation.

Since gasoline is produced by refining crude oil it is a direct cost of the process. If you ignore things that impact gasoline prices such as available capacity, demand, etc then crude oil is the biggest contributor of gasoline cost.

Transportation of crude oil to the U.S. is rising due to the higher costs of bunker fuel (also derived from crude oil). Nevertheless transportation represents a relatively small percentage of the overall cost of gasoline so even if the U.S. were to become self-sufficient the price impact on gasoline would not be more than 5 - 10 c/gal

** Note world price means the price of crude oil at liquid trading points adjusted for quality (such as sulphur content and gravity)

Answer 14

The offshore oil would simply be put into the world supply with all the others unless it was specifically earmarked for US  which isn't going to happen mainly because the US is a member of the WTO...one world economy and all that.

Bottom line, it would have exactly a zero effect and the only ones who would benefit are the ones gouging us today...BIG OIL!

If they really want oil they know where it is, they have tested over 300 sites in Iraq and it showed Iraq has four times more untapped oil reserves than previously thought.

Answer 15

It probably will eventually but its going to take a while because it takes years to build the plants to drill the oil. so if anything it will make gas go higher for a short period of time.

Answer 16

First of all... The stuff attributed to the Chinese and milked for all it's worth by certain talk radio pundits and certain members of a particular McCampaign was a lie.  It was us.  So that makes me suspicious since right after the big lie was fed to all of us we get this political call for drilling... Hmmm...

The amount produced is a drop in the bucket... so sure maybe gas would go down like 0.0000000009 cents per gallon or something.

Also - the numbers given to our President to regurgitate don't add up.

Finally - It's a poor band-aid for a problem that's never going to go away -- that is until it is all gone from the sound of things.

Gasoline is very inneficient in terms of the energy return it produces through combustion... and it's non-renewable.  We need something better.  

I say s***w the drilling (pun intended) and put the money toward true independence!

I used to trust Hannity, Larson and Limbaugh but after the last two weeks, well I just am not sure who to listen to anymore to form my opinions!

I don't need to post references because I am simply using...

Answer 17

The democrat/Socialist agenda is to drive up energy costs.  They will find a way, whether through other 'regulations' or more taxes on energy.

As Bill Clinton stated on January 30, "We must slow the US economy to fight global warming".  They slow the US economy by driving up energy costs.

Answer 18

Shipping costs represent less than 2cents us/gallon.

Amazing, isn't it.

   The price of gasoline isn't being driven by supply and demand alone. Gasoline futures are being used as a way to hedge against stock market instability and falling value of the dollar.

   What needs to happen is that an economist needs to see which generates more money- tourism from Florida's marine environment, or oil leasing (states don't get any money for the oil, they lease sections of the seafloor for a fixed fee).

This is such a political football that no one cases about the money yet, but when the screaming and crying and panic are over, the above will happen, and a decision will be made.