Gill

Are you claiming that oil produced from shale would be more expensive to buy than conventional oil???

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“Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.” [Miguel de Unamuno, “Essays and Soliloquies,” 1924]

SouthernDemocrat

Actually, what I am saying is that if we replaced cheap to produce OPEC oil with very expensive to produce oil from shale, the price at the pump would go up considerably. This whole notion that oil shale is going to get us off of foreign oil is a pipe dream.

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Gill

In that case, I'll quote what another poster stated:

Why would oil from one source be more expensive than oil from any other source. Oil is oil. The profit margin may be more on some sources than others, but the price of the finished product will be the same. Does Texas crude oil sell for less than Gulf of Mexico oil that was drilled 3 miles below the surface?

Don't forget another factor... it costs a lot of money to ship oil from the middle east to the US. Those big tankers use massive amounts of fuel.

SouthernDemocrat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill In that case, I'll quote what another poster stated:

The fact of the matter is though, if you mandate buying from domestic sources over buying from OPEC sources, then you are in effect creating a regional oil market. The problem is you are creating a market that depends upon an oil source that has an EROI that is a mere fraction of OPEC sources. Thus the costs at the pump go up considerably.

Right now, oil that costs a lot to produce is only produced when oil prices are high enough to make it competitive. If the government just up and mandated that we will exploit domestic oil shale to prevent having to import Mid East Oil, then we would be saying we are going to use this very costly oil regardless of what sweet crude is selling on the world market.

The fact of the matter is, we are never, baring some very unforeseen massive leap in technology, going to produce enough oil domestically to significantly offset foreign oil imports or reduce the price at the pump. If we want to use less foreign oil, the only tool we have at our disposal is to use less oil period.

As it is though, say we really ramp up domestic production. All OPEC would do in response is increase production on their end, swamp the market with oil, and all that expensive domestic shale and deep sea production would dry up in a heartbeat.

Gill

Where did "mandate" come from??