3 ms·

I don't know exactly, but there are probably oil reserves in places like Alaska that would be cheaper to extract if it were allowed.

• fisherjeff 10y ago
  That's my guess too, but large numbers of new drilling sites - especially remote ones - would drive up costs while simultaneously helping to keep per-barrel prices low. Just sounds like a terrible ROI to me.
  • chris11 10y ago
    Well, I don't really expect this to cause oil extraction costs to go up. I don't think companies would waste money choosing more expensive drilling sites. But this could also signal an attack on local regulations too. It would make a big difference if local fracking bans were made illegal. Texas did that.
    • fisherjeff 10y ago
      Yeah, I don't see an effect on extraction costs, I was just talking about the significant up-front capex costs in what looks to be a historically slack market. Very interesting thought regarding local regulations; hadn't considered something like that at a federal level. It does also occur to me that this could just be a convenient way to make the opening up of large amounts of protected lands more palatable to the general public.