My First Blog

So... I have never Blogged before. I hope that what I create will be educational and universally significant, as well as somewhat interesting and entertaining.

I chose the subject of Big Oil because it affects each of us daily. I admit that I have seen the price of gasoline rise and rise and have blindly paid the outrageous prices without learning more about the industry giants and what is driving the prices up, up, up.

I can still remember filling my first tank of gas, in my first car, when I was 16 years old. The price at that time was under a dollar a gallon. When I filled my tank this morning I was pleased to only pay $2.85 per gallon (because unfortunately I have paid higher prices in the recent past). In only ten years, the price has tripled! What is going on within the Big Oil Companies to cause this? Or is it truly just our consumption that is creating this economic distress?

I read an article in the May 15, 2006 issue of "Business Week" on the subject of Big Oil and the surprisingly weak nature of the industry. The article stated that the world consumes oil at more than twice the rate of development and discovery (that can't be good).

One section in particular caught my attention. It reads, "Big Oil, that clutch of oil and gas giants in the U.S. and Europe, has big problems. Yes, we know it sounds ridiculous. ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM ) has been reporting the lushest earnings in the history of the business, notching up $8.4 billion in its latest quarterly report. Combine the forecasted 2006 earnings of BP, Royal Dutch Shell (RD ), Chevron (CVX ), Total (TOT ), ConocoPhillips (COP ), and ExxonMobil, and you get roughly $135 billion, a sum greater than the gross domestic product of the Czech Republic or Israel. These companies, moreover, enjoy huge political clout in their home countries, have spotty environmental records, and staunchly defend outrageous prices at the gasoline pump. Why worry about them?

"Well, you don't have to love the big oil companies to worry about their ability to provide us with the energy we need. That job is getting difficult, thanks to huge technical challenges, competition from national oil companies, and demanding, even hostile foreign governments."

In my Blog, I am going to search all media outlets for reports on the Big Oil industry, compare each article with press releases from the individual company, and try to make sense of it all. Wish me luck!