Why dont you hear much news about the Rocky Mountain huge oil deposits?

Question

We have huge oil deposits in the U.S., Alaska, Rocky Mountain, off shore in California, why dont they tap these deposits and put OPEC out of business. If we would put a force together like we did to win WWII, we could solve this oil problem in no time at all. Are all politicians in Wasington now worthless and only care about helping OPEC get richer. Dont worry about the owls in Alaska or Rocky Mtn. who cares about them, if you can not eat what good is the environment. The climate changes are a farst brought on by politicians who dont know what they are talking about. We need oil NOW, fire those in Washington and lets get that oil out of the ground and become a rich nation again who people respect around the world for our efforts not our lack of will power to exceed.

Answer 1

AFAIK.....most oil field in mid-east re not well developed yet....due to the current productions are more than enough for people to live....

many fields there that only produces below 100.000 barrels oil per day are not developed yet...they only produces field that will produces above that number....

it is not about reserves....its all about politics....

Answer 2

In answer to your first question, you probably don't read the right journals.  Oil industry peridodicals routinely discuss the potential of the rockies.  Try reading the Oil and Gas Journal.

Oil shale has been a boom-to-bust-to-boom cycle for over 40 years.  It is also an environmental nightmare.  One needs to move a lot of dirt then process that dirt to get the oil out.  Lot of water is needed and lots of contaminated runoff is produced.  Solve the environemtnal problem and solve the oil shale riddle.

Other oil plays in the rockies involve complex structural traps that are expensive to explore and produce.  At 120/bbl they show some promise.  However, there are no Proudoe Bays beneath the rockies, just a lot of small to medium size fields.

The North Dakoda soil occures in relativelly thin layers so the best way to extract it is by horizontal drilling.  This is much more expensive than conventional drilling.  At 120/bbl it is probaly economic for an oil company to persue.

Answer 3

because everyone is so freaked out that gas prices. are rising, thats why.

Answer 4

Most of the Rocky mountain oil is in the form of oil-shale.  It would have to be mined first, then processed.  This almost makes it more trouble than it's worth, and the oil recovered would cost so much (for processing) that it would not bring the cost of gasoline down.

The latest and greatest that *would* be worth going after are new deposits discovered in North Dakota.  This is oil that would only have to be drilled and tapped.  Supposedly it's better than the best stuff from Saudi Arabia.

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Answer 5

If we could put OPEC out of business, don't you think we would have done it by now?  They have been controlling the price of oil in the world for 35 years.  Why would we let them do that if we could avoid it?  Don't you think everybody else in the world would like to put them out of business? Do you think that the fact that they control 75% of the known oil in the world might have something to do with it?  That includes all the oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California and everywhere else that oil is known to exist.

Oil shale and tar sands are a different story, and require excessive amounts of energy to recover as has been pointed out.

The U.S. only produces about half of the oil that it consumes. Even if we said to h**l with the environment and opened up all possible oil reserves, we could not double our production.