F... gas prices

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

In the short-term, that doesn't sound right to me, unless the long-term outlook overwhelms the short-term economics.

I found this quote interesting:
Sounds like the oil companies want to pass the buck onto the American people so that they don't have to do expensive testing to find more oil. I have little sympathy that they have to pump some of their record profits back into their business to find new oil.

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.