Slick

I just came across this NY Times article from June 19, yes JUNE 19. It seems that there is a global shortage of drill ships which makes any new offshore oil drilling almost impossible for the next few years, and possibly up until at least 2012.

So all of this political back and forth about the "need" to lift the ban on offshore drilling immediately to help lower gas prices is an even bigger load of b.s. than originally reported. It's just another wedge issue to help get McShame elected while at the same time giving another freebie to the oil companies.

Highlights from the article:

In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.

“The crunch on rigs is everywhere,” said Alberto Guimaraes, a senior executive at Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that has discovered some of the most promising offshore oil but has been unable to get at it.
“Almost 100 percent of the oil companies are constrained in their investment program because there is no rig available,” he said.

Transocean believes the deepwater market will continue to be constrained until at least 2012. Over three-quarters of the drill-ships currently under construction have already been contracted to oil companies eager to benefit from triple-digit oil prices, Mr. Long said.

So the NYTimes reported this almost two months ago, yet no other news source has followed up on it as the mainstream media sits back and allows offshore drilling to be a campaign issue. Where have all the real journalists gone?