Energy bill and oil and gas

Before we go further we have to make a disclaimer:  The following deals with politics specifically, the energy bill.  We want to make it perfectly clear that while the Senate approval is a positive step we feel the journey will be very long and we might not see an energy plan enacted during this President's term.   

Again the tipping point seems to be the MTBE issue which the Senate bill conveniently ignored.  We find it interesting that states want the refiners to pay for the MTBE poisoning of their respective water sources when it was the same states that encouraged MTBE use for environmental reasons. 

Ahh....politics...so refreshing.

Here are some highlights from the bill that directly effect the oil and natural gas industries:

 

• A
fuel-savings provision requiring the federal government devise a plan to save 1
million barrels of oil a day by 2015.

(meaning:  lets pass the buck again) 

• Provisions
to streamlining of oil and gas development on existing federal lease sites to
bring the fuels to market sooner.

(this could be very beneficial to the permitting process which has hindered producers for years)

• An
inventory of oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf that to
enable to the federal government to better manage these resources.

(who is going to  gather this data?   what happens if they find  something?)

 • A
provision aimed at stabilizing gasoline prices by encouraging expanded refinery
capacity. Refinery owners get to immediately depreciate refinery expenses when
those expenses increase overall capacity by 5 percent or throughput capacity of
qualified fuels by 25 percent.

(finally a little encouragement for increase in capacity)