Senator Landrieu On Larry King Live

Last night, after President Obama's speech, Senator Landrieu made an appearance on the Larry King Live show. On the show she seemed fairly supportive or President Obama; however, she broke with the President over the gulf oil drilling moratorium. Senator Landrieu claimed that if the 6 month moratorium was not lifted the owners of the oil rigs would simply remove their rigs from the gulf and relocate them to other countries. Is what Senator Landrieu said accurate? Do oil and gas companies have the ability to move production of oil to other countries at any time?

Oil/Gas companies 'rent'/'lease' the oil rigs from companies like Transocean. If there is a moratorium, the oil companies will move their rigs to other places and work there.

But I saw, who cares. Just because it hurts jobs does not mean the jobs take a higher priority than the Gulf!

This is an article from 2006--

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=39366

Rental Fees Double

The Cajun Express is owned by Houston-based Transocean Inc., the world's biggest offshore driller. While record lease rates of as much as $520,000 a day are funding expansions by Transocean and other rig operators, shipyards from South Korea to Singapore to Scandinavia are backlogged with orders. Growth of the offshore drilling fleet will be gradual, says Kenneth Sill, a Houston- based analyst at Credit Suisse Securities USA LLC.

Daily rental fees on the most sophisticated and rugged drilling vessels are double 18 months ago, Sill says.

"Day rates have climbed aggressively because demand for these rigs far outweighs the ready supply,'' says Clayton Ballard, the top-ranking Transocean employee aboard Discoverer Deep Seas, another rig at the Tahiti field.

Worldwide, there are 31 rigs on order that will be able to handle deepwater projects such as Jack, according to Houston- based Rigzone, which compiles data on the drilling industry. Two are scheduled to be finished next year and 13 are slated for delivery in 2008

just stall the matter in courts... even if he loses, the rigs don't go anywhere.

His excuse: the rigs are potentially unsafe and they should not escape regulation by going somewhere where the regulations aren't as strict such as West Africa.

Oh... and do you really want the cameras to spotlight the environmental excesses in West Africa especially Nigeria where they are fighting an insurrection of people who have been heavily polluted and receive minimal compensation from oil. Sounds familiar doesn't it!

:sarcasm: Now that it is put that way it does seem silly. Doesn't it? And someone should repeat it that way to her.

What Land drooler forgets is that if there is oil in the Gulf it will still be there after the 6 months is over. I think also that we need data on what are the requirements at these other sites for oil drilling. How much stricter or lenient in the other countries?

If they were willing to spend millions of dollars to drill just one well then they will come back.