Politicians claim that 68 million acres of oil and gas leases in the United States are held by big oil companies and should be drilled before any more are leased. Actually, most of these leases are held by small companies and individuals. U.S. exploration leases held by major oil companies today are located far offshore, in western United States or in Alaska. Producing areas are a small part of the sedimentary basins which are necessary to generate oil and gas. Leases in wildcat areas are necessarily large.

First, wildcat areas are selected by air photo, surface geology and regional geophysical surveys. If a sedimentary basin is confirmed leasing is requested. The lease winner, by largest bid, then conducts detailed seismic work which is expensive and time consuming, especially if there is a lot of surface legal work and unjustified environmental opposition. If prospects are located drilling equipment can be mobilized and surface locations acquired, permitted and prepared. Rarely prospective areas are easily identified and can be drilled soon after issuance of the lease and all legal requirements accomplished.

If a discovery is made and development initiated, the remainder of the lease is explored in detail for smaller prospects. Usually several dry holes are drilled before a lease is fully explored. Availability of offshore deepwater drilling equipment is another factor. Seldom is the entire process completed before the lease expires.

It usually takes many years before a productive basin is fully explored. It would be complete folly and disaster to limit the term of oil and gas leases. We should offer every incentive to explore our far offshore and Alaskan Arctic areas to reduce the effect of Mid East oil producers on the cost of our energy.

C. J. GUDIM
Fruita

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 1:20 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.