LETTER: Don’t like the price of gas? Talk to your elected officials

I recently had the opportunity to visit Hutchinson to attend my 60th high school reunion. When speaking with my fellow classmates, the subject of $4 a gaIlon gasoline came up. Having it been known that following my Air Force retirement in 1978 I had been engaged in the oil and gas production business in Midland, Texas, some of my classmates suggested that I was a part of the high-price gasoline problem.

I believe it is a tragic disregard by our elected officials in Congress to not fully recognize and acknowledge our domestic energy problems and even worse, to take no positive measures to help prevent the situation we are in today. Thusly, I will point out some cardinal points for Leader readers to consider.

First and foremost, there are two basic domestic explorers for and producers of crude oil and natural gas, those being the majors such as Exxon and Conoco-Phillips and the independents who are usually small companies which engaged in fossil fuel exploration and production. It is the small independent who drills and produces up to 85 percent of our nation’s domestic crude oil. Independents do not usually have refineries and commercial gas station outlets as do the major companies. Therefore, the independent is not benefiting from abnormal profits as is the major companies who receive profits from buying crude oil from the independents and foreign sources, the refinery process and then finally from gasoline pump sales.

Because of the high cost of doing business today, the independent is not much better off in crude oil profit revenue at $25 a barrel than he is at $140 a barrel because his abnormal costs in labor, materials and environmental compliance have risen accordingly with the high price of crude oil as well as natural gas.

Why we’re in trouble
But are we really faced with a limited supply of crude oil, and if not, why do we rely so much on foreign oil to supplement our domestic stocks? When I got into this business in 1981 our foreign crude oil imports were approximately 30 percent of our nation’s demand and today they exceed 60 percent!

The U.S. government knows where it can get its hands on more domestic untapped petroleum than exists in the proven reserves of Iran, Iraq and other Mideastern countries, which have in excess of 300 billion barrels available for production. Our unexploited crude oil stock is greater than the reserves of Russia, Libya and Nigeria combined and because our Congress has refused to allow crude oil exploration and production in many areas of the Gulf Coast and off of the shores of California and including the National Arctic Wildlife Preserve, mainly for unfounded environmental reasons, we as a nation cannot produce the needed crude oil to fuel our modes of transportation, to generate ample electrical power at a reasonable price and to heat our homes in the winter.

Therefore, we must rely on foreign crude oil to meet our domestic needs even though we have sufficient crude oil reserves to become a self-sufficient energy power.

So while many would blame our foreign crude oil suppliers and their governments (some very unfriendly to the U.S.) for our energy problems, the main culprit is our own oil cartel, the U.S. government.

In my past 15 years of oil and gas production business, I have had the opportunity to brief and warn many members of Congress and other branches of both state and federal governments on the disastrous effects of restrictions and constraints being placed on domestic energy production, including nuclear power. While I was usually given the courtesy of attention from those to whom I spoke, it was mostly to deaf ears. But now that we consumers and voters are complaining abut ultra-high energy costs and a do-nothing attitude of our governments, it appears that Congress and others are taking a more serious and concerned attitude to what has already happened to our domestic energy producing industries.

I hope it is not too late. So now when you fill up at the pump with $4 a gallon gasoline, don’t cuss at the pump. The blame should more likely go to the person you voted for to represent you in Washington, D.C.

Harry “Butch” Spannaus is a retired Air Force colonel who has served the domestic petroleum industry in various senior management positions for independent oil and gas producers. He is currently the associate vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association in Midland, Texas, and is considered an authority on domestic fossil fuel production and related energy issues. He can be contacted at colspannaus@PBPA.info.