quote:
Why Americans root for the demise of domestic oil production is beyond me. I guess they are too young to know what dependence on Middle Eastern energy sources is like.

Theres a difference. The reason this is going on is because we arent having to depend on foreign oil. Surely the oil companies that have been screaming for this for as long as I can remember knew the current market was a likely outcome. If anything, the reason we're still in it is because the US production costs have improved so much to the point where we can afford to still be competitive with OPEC despite the lower prices.

And sorry, but I don't feel bad for Welders that can't get oilfield jobs making $75/hr. There are plenty of jobs to be had making a good living especially for skilled people, just not at ridiculously inflated rates. Surely people understand that the market of the last 10 years was only temporary.

Furthermore, as oil has increased, oil companies were spending millions (billions) investing in technology to make production cheaper and more efficient to maximize their profits. Now that oil has come down, those investments have to be really showing their worth as evidenced by the fact the we're still beating OPEC at their own game and the shock at how cheap domestic producers can still turn a profit.

Temporary, but it will come back-- I mean there's been some developments technologically but its not like we didn't know the Bakken or those Canadian Tar Sands were chockful of oil-- it was just uneconomical to take it out at $40 a barrel, once oil goes up again they'll come back online.

I would be shocked if the Saudi's don't cut back though, they can pump it for basically nothing (relative to basically everyone else) but they'd rather get a nice mid-range price than rock bottom.