F... gas prices

[onlydarksets]

You're worried about $100 million in shareholder value measured up against properly incentivizing oil companies to develop alternative fuels? That's disappointing.

What happens after they exhaust this supply? They have to explore the 68 million acres anyway, because they are going to do the same thing they've done for decades past, which is to ignore the fact that oil is not a renewable resource. The oil companies want the quick fix (which I understand). I also don't begrudge them their record profits (I've stated in the past that this is our fault, as consumers, for paying increasing prices instead of demanding they develop alternatives).

However, giving the oil companies another free pass does not help the consumers in the long run. The current path is simply not a sustainable position.

Originally Posted by Schneed10

This makes so little sense, it boggles my mind.

If it costs $1.0 billion to explore, test, and drill in an area considered relatively small by oil exploration standards, only to generate $0.9 billion in expected oil revenues, why the hell would any company want to do that?

They're not passing the buck to anybody. They're not asking that someone else test it and explore it. They're simply passing on the opportunity because the payoff isn't there.

Can you explain how the American people, as a whole, benefit if Exxon loses $100 million of shareholder value on an exploration like this? Americans get a minimal added benefit in the form of increased oil supplies; mostly American shareholders of Exxon experience a $100 million loss in stock value. The loss in stock value negates the gain on oil prices.

People forget that big business comes back to help the general public.