You East of the Rockies bastard you!

Coast to Coast AM reported, as I limped home from work, that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mehico could last "centuries", until that particularly tapped reservoir was dry. Just thought I'd toss that out there as a bookend to the long estimates.

Now - while I strongly urge all to follow the 3 links in my last I thought it might help further our understanding of this moratorium with an excerpt I found most useful (it cites multiple sources, etc) from the UK Telegraph. Plus, I grow concerened not everyone follows every link each of us post, although I'll admit Titus can probably lay claim to that at near the 100th percentile or so. At any rate ...

"But the move [the US moratorium] comes at a cost. It will mean a halt to work on 33 drilling platforms, jeopardising as many as 46,000 jobs on land and sea, according to industry figures. Those rigs, leased by oil companies at a typical cost of $500,000 a day (£340,000), are likely to be loaded onto ships and taken elsewhere – possibly to Brazil, India or the west coast of Africa, where wells are waiting to be drilled.

An emotionally powerful defence of drilling came this week from the widows of two of the 11 workers who died when BP's Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire.

"My husband took great pride in his job, and many men depend on offshore drilling, that is our way of life," said Natalie Roshto, who lost her husband, Shane, in the disaster. She told a congressional hearing: "I fully support offshore drilling."

Her views were echoed by Courtney Kemp, a Louisiana resident whose husband, Ross Wyatt Kemp, died in the explosion. Kemp urged stiff penalties for safety lapses but described offshore rigs as "a way for families to make a living".

The freeze will have a significant impact on the oil supply. The energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates that 80,000 barrels of oil per day will be deferred in 2011 and that further ahead, a tightening in permits could reduce production by 350,000 barrels per day in 2015 and 2016. Shares in oil services companies including Halliburton, Diamond Offshore, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger have slumped.

Although drilling in shallow water will still be allowed, these figures will be sufficient to reduce any growth in supply from the gulf, which accounts for a quarter of US oil production. That will hinder the Obama administration's stated goal of weaning the US off its reliance on foreign oil, much of which comes from politically unstable parts of the world.

Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, maintained that the moratorium was unreasonable: "This is like seeing a 100-car wreck on an interstate highway and then shutting down Detroit from producing cars because of a car accident."

He said it would have "devastating economic consequences" for the industry and suggested it would mean that oil companies drilled elsewhere in the world: "Oil companies look at the political risk factors when they decide whether to invest in particular projects. Right now, the political risk of investing in a deepwater project in the US is roughly equal to Angola."

The Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, has chimed in with a letter to Obama urging a rethink. Jindal said his state had already suffered "severe negative economic and ecological impacts" from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, with the local seafood industry in jeopardy and wetlands clogged by tar. He wrote: "The last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more."

On Tuesday oil firm Anadarko Petroleum announced it was moving three rigs away from the gulf in response to the moratorium, putting them elsewhere to meet production goals. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported fears from shipbuilders and vessel operators that the freeze could effectively shut down work for two years, with rumours of 3,500 imminent job cuts at one local port operator."

Angola ... nice, huh?

Now I'm not claiming to have read the executive order line by line, but this clearly portrays a federal net cast intent on capturing more then yet to be made ready rigs of mere exploration. This smacks of "not letting an emergency go to waste", if you value my humble opinion (especially when considering the manipulation of that report). But as I said, read the 3 articles I linked to, pursue your own as well, and let us get to the bottom of this.