Dear HCN,
First off, I’d like to
lavish HCN with praises for putting together
such a jolly good read, for sure – then, secondly, for also being
well-congealed with quotable info regarding the state of our
Western environs … perhaps. Explanation:
In his
letter of Dec. 3, 2001, regarding Randy Udall’s opinion, “We are
the Oil Tribe” (HCN, 11/19/01: We are the Oil Tribe), Artie Rothman
obliterates Randy’s number of “250 rigs search(ing) for oil in
America” with his own number – “1,278,” which Artie extracts from
what he says is an unimpeachable source: “the Baker Hughes monthly
rig count (the industry’s common standard).”
Questions:
Why no editor’s immediate
follow-up/explanation? Which number, if either, is correct? Have
you queried Randy about his source? Doesn’t HCN
require of its professional (and, for that matter, its
nonprofessional) contributors accompanying documentation of such
statistics?
Constructing an opinion is one thing,
but doing it using unstable or questionable “facts” which, in fact,
may actually be unfactual, will quickly reduce any sweet-reading
periodical to a poor source of material to be used in serious
discussions with one’s ideological counterparts, let alone in
jousts with one’s ideological opponents.
Got any
answers?
David
Brich
Hotchkiss,
Colorado
Randy Udall replies:
Dear
HCN,
Last year there were about 1,200 drilling
rigs actively searching for oil and natural gas in the U.S. and
Canada. But the vast majority are searching for natural gas, not
oil.
In the most recent issue of Oil and
Gas Journal, the numbers are:
- 907
drilling rigs in the U.S., plus 289 in
Canada;
Of that total of 1,196:
- 150 are oil
rigs;
- 757 are gas
rigs;
- 119 are drilling offshore (of these, probably 75 are looking for oil, 50 for gas).
So,
if this is the letter writer’s question, there are fewer than 250
oil rigs (as stated in the article) looking for oil in the
U.S.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A great read, but does it compute?.
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