Report: Drilling Permits Plummet Under Biden Administration After Peaking in April

[mystery-ak]

Report: Drilling Permits Plummet Under Biden Administration After Peaking in April

Nick Gilbertson 14 Mar 2022

Data from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) shows that approved permits to drill oil and gas on public lands have seen a substantial drop off under President Joe Biden’s administration after peaking in April of 2021, according to a report.

Last April, approved permits topped out at 643 but gradually declined since, with two minor increases in September and November of last year, Environment and Energy Publishing (E&E News) reported. In January — the month that saw the second-lowest permit approvals during the Biden presidency — only 95 permits were granted, marking an 85 percent drop-off since April 2021, according to E&E News. February produced a minor increase in permit approvals, registering at 186, which was still the fourth lowest in a single month during Biden’s term to date.

Moreover, outputs from New Mexico and Wyoming have gradually tapered off, according to the states’ BLM offices, per E&E News.

Spokesperson Melissa Schwartz of the Interior Department, which supervises the BLM, told E&E news via email that the agency is efficient, noting approval turnaround time had dropped more than 50 percent over the last decade. “Schwartz also noted that the oil and gas industry holds significant drilling rights already,” E&E News reports. “Many of the drilling permits held by industry — and 60 percent of the acreage leased to oil producers — sits unused, she said.”

more
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/14/report-drilling-permits-plummet-under-biden-after-peaking-in-april/

[Smokin Joe]

Those undrilled permits remain that way for a reason.

These knuckleheads just refuse to acknowledge that many drilling permits are over reservoirs that either don't exist or are uneconomical.  Exploration is the process of finding out where oil is, and leases surrounding a wildcat will be locked down in case something is found. Often it is not, and the leases remain undrilled.

There have been more than a few occasions where the first well in a multi-well program ended up being the last. That happens.

The oil business is a business, not the Salvation Army, (even if it does do a lot of charitable stuff on the side).
 It can only exist if it drills where oil or gas can be produced at a profit. 

Most of those undrilled leases represent efforts to find oil that did not, at least in any quantity that could make money.

What really stinks is having regulators who don't have a clue how the industry functions.