Concise answer as to why drilling now won't affect oil prices much now

[tannybogus]

<snip>
The current price of oil is based largely - some would say entirely - on the amount of oil available now and the amount people want to use now. To the extent that there is a psychological, speculative or political element in the price of oil, that dimension applies to factors that might have an effect on supplies or contracts in the near term. Think an attack on Iran before Bush leaves office, or a cut in Nigerian pipeines, or a cut in Federal Reserve rates that might boost the U.S. economy and stimulate more oil demand. Even the inflow of cash to oil markets over the past couple of years has gone largely to index funds that mostly buy oil contracts due two or three months from now.

Opening up a new offshore lease area would take years to affect supplies. The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration estimates it would take until 2017 before any new offshore lease produces oil and many more years before those leases reached peak production. That time horizon is far beyond anything on the minds of traders or investors now.

Look at it this way: If you wanted to gamble on rising oil prices that far in advance, you'd have to buy oil, pay for storage and lose the use of the money tied up during the next ten years. (It is tied up because you used it to buy the oil.) You would need a huge premium in ten years to make it worthwhile. The New York Mercantile Exchange doesn't even sell oil futures that far into the future. The last one listed on its Web site is December 2016 and the number of open positions for that month is quite small.
<snip>

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/energywire/2008/08/bushs_drilling_ban_its_not_so.html

Damn the facts. Full speed ahead! I want my $1.00/gal gas NOW! That's the public mantra.:crazy:

[DangerDave921]

1. OK

And me saving every month for retirement won't add up to much for 30 years. I still do it.

Changes in carbon emissions won't make much change for years either. We still do it.

[tannybogus]

2. That's not the point.

The point is that people are lead to believe that it will happen immediately.

I'm not arguing about long term goals.:hi:

[DangerDave921]

3. Ah

I see your point. But you also seem to be suggesting that we should not drill. I disagree. I think we need to drill everywhere we can (and explore shale) while we go full-bore on alternatives. But to ignore energy that is available to us is just silly.

[tannybogus]

4. I'm still pondering drilling.

We do need something to help until alternatives can really pick up the load. However, the return may not be worth it.

The oil does not go exclusively to the US. China and India will continue to demand more and more of oil as their number of cars grow.

The price of oil may go up no matter what we do. We need to work on alternatives seriously.

[DangerDave921]

5. What we need

is to convince the rest of the world not to use as much oil, so we can have more for ourselves! LOL

We need to spread the word on the fun of camping outdoors, wood stoves, and sleeping in Sleeping Bags!