The Permitorium Continues -- Perhaps The Best Story of The Day -- Not The Bakken

Link here.

This is truly incredible, truly incredible.

Though delays in federal permitting for new Gulf of Mexico drilling are shrinking, industry executives fear new opportunities abroad will draw staffing and equipment away from Gulf projects.

Operators are finding it more difficult to lure back offshore rigs chased away by the drilling moratorium that followed last year's BP oil spill. The increasing complexity of drilling in deeper waters is also making it more difficult to hire, train and retain qualified staff, companies report.

Speaking Dec. 1 on the future of offshore operations at an industry gathering hosted by Jefferies & Co. in Houston, oil and gas executives said they expect an active 2012 in the Gulf, especially in the deep waters of the outer continental shelf. Several new finds and an uptick in interest by big global players like Statoil and Petrobras are seen as particularly benefiting Houston-area offshore service providers.

But at the same time, some of the Gulf's most active drillers admit that they are being slowed down not only by a permitting backlog, but by the growing difficulty of deepwater operations and a boom in activity in Africa, Australia and Brazil.

I said that a long, long time ago -- the rigs and the personnel wouldn't be coming back. First the outright moratorium and then the permitorium in the Gulf. I tracked the number of rigs leaving the Gulf for quite some time, then lost interest. I said at the time, once the rigs left, they wouldn't come back. Prescient.

I've had folks write to tell me the permitorium is lifted and things are back to normal. Hmmm. 

Too much work to be done in Africa, Australia, and Brazil. Even our president went to Brazil to encourage their oil industry; I don't think any president has gone to our offshore drilling prospects to cheer for our oil industry. Remarkable.

Now this is the really, really incredible story. Earlier today I happened across a story in the Houston business journal on-line suggesting that the president was becoming more supportive of the domestic oil and gas industry. Not only was it completely vacuous, but there was not one data point in the article to suggest anything along that line.