PrintThe important good news you haven't heard
Wonderful news of great significance has been announced, and America's major media are yawning. Mexico's state—owned oil company Pemex has revealed that it has discovered a gigantic new oil field, one capable of delivering millions of barrels a day of new capacity to the thirsty world oil market. No lengthy and potentially risky tanker voyages will be required to supply America with this black gold, either.
The Middle East's lock on world oil reserves has been diminished. Mexico will vault into the first tier of world oil suppliers, ahead of Iran, and just behind Iraq. The wealth accumulation and jobs generated by this find will relieve pressure on Mexico's poor to illegally emigrate to el Norte for survival. All in all, a pretty big deal, I think.
The daily which used to be called 'the newspaper of record' did find room to mention the startling good news — the second clause of one sentence buried in the middle of an an article about another subject: the Mayor of Mexico City:
Mexico has strong trade ties with the United States and Canada and state oil monopoly Pemex said on Monday it had found new deposits which could boost oil output to the level of giants like Saudi Arabia.
The Wall Street Journal took note on its website, quoting Mexico City newspaper El Universal, which broke the story worldwide yesterday. But aside from cursory note, the American press is simply not very interested in this major news story which promises to directly affect every American.
The idea that enormous pools of oil are still waiting to be discovered in our own neighborhood is simply not very attractive to journalists who have committed themselves to the view that we are running our of oil, that we have to accommodate ourselves to the Arab and Islamic oil potentates, and that consumption of energy is ruining the planet. If ever there were an instance of the media lens focusing only on the news it wants to see, this is it.
Years ago, when working with oil exploration executives, I learned that the world's oil supply isn't running out in the way most people think. Far from it: huge and ongoing leaps in exploration and recovery technologies are making more and more pools of oil known to us, and giving us the means of pumping them to the surface. The amount of oil available depends very much on how hard you look for it, how much you are willing to pay for it, and on what restrictions you face in pumping and shipping it.
Contrary to the view common among America's effete elitists, the oil industry is home to some of the most sophisticated and intelligent minds on the planet. Companies like Exxon and (gasp!) Halliburton ceaselessly push the frontiers of technology in a vast array of fields, from computing to seismology to metallurgy, and make huge and risky wagers in order to develop the energy supplies of the future. Not all these pioneers live in Southeast Texas, but I like to think of them as the 'heroes of Houston,' after the city which serves as the world headquarters of this industry. We all depend on them for our welfare, indeed our survival.
If we would free these heroes to explore in the Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida, on the Pacific Coast, and in other 'sensitive' areas, oil prices and our trade deficit would fall. Nobody knows the true extent of the oil waiting to be discovered in these places, because you would have to be insane to spend any money finding out. The millions of dollars required to understand the oil potential would never earn a return, because politics forbids drilling and pumping out the treasure lying beneath. For all we know, there are several Saudi Arabian—sized finds out there, just waiting for us to come knocking at their doors.
At least Mexico is willing to find out. Bravo! to Pemex, and congratulations to Mexico.
