OT.. Oil Companies vs. Taxpayers

Looks like the chickens are coming home to roost.. While American
taxpayers gritted their teeth and paid the tab for gasolene in their
vehicles.. electricity in their homes and the gas bills to heat those
homes, oil companies posted record profits in quarter after quarter.

The high profile executives of those oil companies enjoyed the obscene
salaries and perks that compass the national budgets of countries
around the world.. Our country is suffering through the largest national
debt that could ever be imagined and our great grandchildren will be
paying off that debt.. if it ever gets paid.. Our government is borrowing
money, just to keep operating..

Now then.. we discover (it was discovered months ago, actually) those
same oil companies and the record profits they continually report, are
in serious arrears in paying their share of that tax burden.. The Royalties
they owe the taxpayers amounts to billions of dollars .. While they have
enjoyed tax entitlements and credit, they aren't even paying for their
privilege of pumping the oil from the lands that are owned by the
taxpayers..

Our government agencies who are commissioned to protect the American
taxpayers, enforce collection of the revenues and assure that we all share
the costs of living in this great nation, are sadly understaffed and
outright
incompetent.. The Dept. of Interior has been designated to oversee and
serve as the taxpayers' advocate in collection of the Royalties payments.
In the past few weeks, they've been unable to qualify how much the oil
companies owe the taxpayers and/or which companies have reneged on
their agreements to make these payments..

Suddenly .. the rosy pictures of these oil companies are changing at a
rapid pace.. The cosy and friendly atmosphere of friends in high places
are recent history.. The oil companies will be facing another Congress
and Senate, come January.. The incoming Congress and Senate will at
least be conducting investigations and will not be quite so corporate
friendly .. Hopefully, through the investigations which are being set up
and scheduled in 2007, there will be exposures which will trigger the
taxpayers to demand their representatives to take appropriate action to
level the playing field..

It is past due time for the chickens to come home and roost.. American
taxpayers have been carrying these people for too damned long..

Bill Walker
Irving

 

snipped, but read it all)
''It is past due time for the chickens to come home and roost.. American
taxpayers have been carrying these people for too damned long..
Bill Walker
Irving


You damn straight, amen, brother Ben.

B. Jay Kana--
NETexas
03Valk-&-98 Magna
Have a Dandy Day--

 

Does this mean it's time for me to dump my Exxon shares?

 

You are asking the wrong question to the wrong group, I'd think..

hmmm.. Could be, you'd get a more qualified response from one
of the groups who've experienced such dilemnas at Enron or
Global Crossing..

Personally, I'd expect that "dumping" your shares would have
little or no impact.. Jeff Skilling could be a good source for your
information.. Good luck, tycoon..

Bill Walker

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( wrote)
snipped, but read it all)
''It is past due time for the chickens to come home and roost.. American
taxpayers have been carrying these people for too damned long.. Bill
Walker
Irving



You damn straight, amen, brother Ben.

tomorrow wrote:
Does this mean it's time for me to dump my Exxon shares?




Hail' naw. It is the time to buy more shares.

 

Thanks, Bill, and after doing a little research, I think you're
absolutely correct. Currently, only 8.66% of my domestic stock
holdings[1] are invested in the energy sector, and since I have such
little esposure there (the Wilshire 5000 index reflects 7.68% energy
sector value, so I'm not exactly overloaded!) I think any negative
fallout from the hearings and investigations you've warned of will be
strictly limited.

Appreciate the heads-up, though!

Tim the Tycoon

 

I hope you don't have any plans with that money. It's hardly worth the
effort...

BTW, you forgot about "phone dodger"...too bad too, I was hoping to get
those karate lessons you promised!

 

PerZACKly my thoughts. Thanks for the confirmation. At least this is
one tycoon who now knows where to go for competent financial advice!
Between you and your dad, I won't be having to pay those "investment
advisors" their cut of my extensive investment holdings, any more!

Gee, Brian, if you would only learn to identify yourself over the
phone, you might find folks giving you a warmer welcome. When you you
head up north to visit Vic, make sure you tell him who is calling when
you phone *his* home!

 

Bill Walker,''Appreciate the heads-up, though!
Tim the Tycoon
~~Fat Boy Circle Rider to the Rich & Famous~~~




I like your new signature. Mainly, because it gave me a nice laff. I
needed it, I am suffering from the likeness of a Hang Over. But, the
fly in the buttermilk, is I din't drank’, to get no hang over. But do
have the classic symptoms, its gotta be a 24 hour virus, cuz I layed
around all morning going back and 4th to the outhouse. It all started
this morning 4am.
I am gonna live. and thats why I enjoyed your Sig, it made me have a
wide grin.

B. Jay Kana--
NETexas
03Valk-&-98 Magna
Have a Dandy Day--

 

Glad I could help brighten your day!

 

Yes that is what happens after the companies have spent years downsizing,
automating and getting more efficent during the years of lower and very low
oil prices. When you can make a profit at $20 to 25 a barrel depending on
the company, and the prices shoot up the record highs that have been
recorded, yes, you will have very large amounts of profits.

Higher profits also means higher income taxes as well.

By the way, you haven't forgotten about OPEC and the futures markets, have
you?? Those two outfits have a much larger influence on crude oil prices
that most of the public realizes or are aware of.

As for the salaries and perks, the stockholders are the ones that need to
get busy and limit that stuff. I might also mention that those guys were
paid on the performance of the company. Does good, paid good. Does poorly,
paid less or fired. But I will agreed that some of the bonuses are really
too much to be justified. And it is not just an oil industry only thing.
There have been plenty of other industries that the same sort of thing that
happens.

In fact, Forbes and other business magazines have run articles about the
huge salaires and perks in all industires. They do not think that all the
stuff is justifed.

The above has nothing to do with the oil companies. Congress approves the
spending bills. Federal Government has been borrowing money for decades, and
I suspect that the borrowing started before WWII.

I hope that you do realize that not all oil companies have production on
federal public lands. Indeed, there is not very much of that in Texas
compared to other states. Offshore production, there might be some beyond
the 200 mile border that I think that Texas has.

Most oil companies are independents. They do not have refineries. They sell
crude oil and natural gas straight from the well head to others who then
pipeline the stuff to the refineries and natural gas plants.

I think that absent of some really lousy bookeeping by those oil companies
with production on federal lands or fraud by the same companies's operating
officers, there will mostly grandstanding in the Demos favorite show,
whipping the oil industry.

It is said that the cure for low prices is low prices. And that is what
happened in the 1997 to 2000 time frame, I think. And several other years
after the Oil Boom went Bust in 1981 or 82.

Crude oil prices dropped down to the $4 to 5 a barrel price for well over a
year, seems like. There were a lot of pain in the oil patch. One town that I
read about, Big Lake, Texas and others like it, had at least an 50%
unemployment rate. I have been told that a lot of the oil patch workers got
jobs in the prison system as guards in Big Springs, Colorado City and other
locations. Others left the area and the oil industry.

A lot of marginal (stripper, under 10 barrels per day) wells were plugged in
the oil field. Lots of production lost. A lot of oil people thought that oil
stay low for many, many years to come. Otherwise they would not have plugged
the wells, but the taxes and etc., were still there to paid, so they were
plugged. Those wells will never be produced again. Re-entry costs are too
high for the small amount of production.

So the effects of the low prices and it's effects on the domestic oil
industry have come home to roost for the American energy consumer. Loss of
domestic well production, loss of skilled oil field workers, and less
replacement wells drilled. Texas drilling rig count during that time set a
new record for the smallest number of rigs in use since the rig count
started in the WWII era.

The price of crude oil had dropped so low that the feds lost money on
collection expenses for the Windfall Profits Tax of Jimmy Carter's. And I
think that they did away with the tax also.

But you are on a tear or a rant and none of this probadly matters to you.

I have worked in the oilfield on drilling rigs. I also worked on a plugging
unit that plugged depleted wells. Wells that no longer produced enough oil
to keep operating.

Oil wells do not last forever. Production starts out high and drops off from
there until it is below 1 or 2 barrels a day. Plugging decisions are based
sometimes on salt water or brine water as it is sometimes called. The stuff
has to be disposed of properly.

Sometimes it is trucked to a disposal well. Or if the operator is lucky,
there is a disposal well close enough to pipeline the stuff to for disposal.
Way too much water production can make what would have been a good well, a
money loser.

If there are a few bad boys that have been cooking the books and etc, yes,
spank them by all means. Just do not condemn the entire industry because of
a few idiots.

I am sure the stockholders did not want or authorize that sort of activity.
I know that the huge majority of Enron stockholders did not support or
authorize the sort of activities and actions that drove the company into
ruins.

Any successful attempt to throttle or limit the successful legal operation
of the oil companies will backfire on all of us. It will hurt all, rich and
poor alike. And it will be much worst for the poor.

It is said that the power to tax involves the power to destroy. There will
be much temptation for the Demos to increase taxes on oil industry. It is
possible to cripple or destroy the domestic oil industry which will leave
you, me and the rest of the country at the mercy of OPEC and the foreign oil
companies.

Keep it upright and moving, And watch out for the deer and wild hogs. And
those Black Angus cattle.

 

Thanks Dixon, for supplying some educated thoughts
from a perspective of industry experience.


Gary

 

Sure, I read it.. didn't merit a response..