You got it right. If the oil companies are going to pay for the drilling, they're going to sell it for whatever the market will bear. No matter how much oil we find here, we'll continue paying what the rest of the world pays. Prices will not come down just because it's our oil. The oil companies will not give us a break on the price. The world price will probably drop, as you pointed out, but we won't get a break just 'cause they're pumping it here.

I'll even stick my neck out and make a prediction. If we develop these alleged domestic reserves, and if they are substantial, and the middle east breaks out in war and those stocks are off-line, Americans will have to bid along with everyone else to buy their own oil.

The only reasons the oil industry is so keen to drill here is that supplies will be secure and production costs will be lower once the fields are on line. Exploration costs will be huge, but I bet already there are plans afoot to get the government to subsidize them.

It doesn't matter where it comes from, it only matters how much is available. Besides, if I'm wrong, the oil will still be there 20-30 years from now. If i'm right, 20-30 years from now we'll be exactly where we are now, but with no reserves.

It has absolutely nothing to do with caribou, it is the Great Game, and it's been played this way since the Royal Navy built the Dreadnought to run on bunker oil instead of coal.