Originally Posted by ban basketball  We need no more increased land for offshore drilling. What we need is to ask the oil companies why they aren't drilling on the millions uopn millions of acres of offshore land leased to them at present.
Keep in mind that what they are asking for is more land, but yet they are not drilling on the vast, vast majority of land that has already been leased to them. Why?
Who cares anyway? Let's bring back the electric car. |
Since you are so ignorant about oil & gas matters I will try to explain this to you.
Companies are NOT successful with every well they drill. But you do learn something about the area with each well you drill. Thus you buy several leases hoping one or more of them are productive. One well pospects are very rarely drilled and are almost always very bad economics. Offset wells are where the money is made and that requires having the leases BEFORE the first well is drilled or you will missout on the rights to drill your offsets.
As you improve the quality of your geology (ie your knowlege of the subsurface formation and content) you may decide to purchase some new leases and either extend or let others lapse. Sometimes larger companies buy leases to give themselves leverage in other companies expected AOIs (areas of interest).
Rest assured ban, oil companies purchase leases for a purpose, but they are not always solely for the purpose of drilling that well.