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THREAD: The oil industry is suing over President Biden's commonsense order to pause new oil and gas leasing on public lands, citing a shoddy study out of U of WY which claims the industry will be decimated (spoiler, not true). Let's take a closer look. https://www.wyoenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final-Report-Federal-Leasing-Drilling-Ban-Policies-121420.pdf https://twitter.com/WesternEnergy1/status/1354506268610764801
The study was conducted by Dr. Timothy Considine, who has published research for the American Petroleum Institute, Marcellus Shale Assn, and others. Considine's industry-funded studies have been so shoddy that some have been corrected and even retracted. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/nation_world/20120530_Shale-gas_researcher_is_drawing_criticism.html
When calculating oil prices, demand, etc... for future years, Considine used the @EIAgov reference case. Normally standard, but in this case, that study was published in Jan. 2020—months before the pandemic and international tensions tanked the oil market. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/
For example, EIA assumed Brent crude oil prices would bottom out at $60/barrel in 2020 and then steadily rise. Brent crude has traded below $50/barrel for most of the last year, bottoming out below $20 last April. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/brn00?countrycode=uk
Assuming high oil prices skews the entire study, because it assumes the industry will be ramping up drilling to cash in on those prices. Instead, low prices, sinking demand, and massive debt have crippled the oil industry—all during the Trump admin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/shales-bust-shows-basis-of-boom-debt-debt-and-debt/2020/07/22/0e6ed98c-cc41-11ea-99b0-8426e26d203b_story.html
Further, in his study Dr. Considine made absolutely no attempt to calculate the public health costs of drilling, or the benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, the goal was purely to produce bold numbers for the oil industry to hold up and say "the sky is falling."
That's no coincidence, because the group suing over Biden's order—Western Energy Alliance—initially tried to fund the study, but settled for funding the PR campaign to promote its results. https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2021/01/industry-group-helped-fund-pr-campaign-for-wyoming-oil-gas-study-2030597
The oil industry's Chicken Little routine is so disingenuous. Companies have stockpiled more than 13 million acres of idle leases and more than 7,600 approved, but unused, drilling permits—which means the industry can keep on drilling despite this order. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/fact-sheet-president-biden-take-action-uphold-commitment-restore-balance-public-lands
Bottom line—for years the oil industry hired lobbyists to keep the system broken, paid for studies and PR campaigns to promote disinformation, and now they're hiring pricey lawyers to make sure oil executives continue to benefit at the expense of communities and our climate.
