Expert: No oil off coast

Q: Congress let the ban on offshore drilling expire last year, and some are pushing Congress and President Barack Obama to reinstate the ban. If they’re unsuccessful and the ban expires, what can South Carolina expect?

A: “Indifference. I really don’t think there’s any oil out there. … To be able to find oil and drill for offshore oil requires a great deal of money. For an oil reservoir to be economically viable requires there to be a fairly good-sized reservoir. From my reviews of the public record, there are no oil reservoirs of any consequence that would entice anybody to drill. … Even if one can identify a reservoir, and this oil is technically recoverable, it does not mean that it is economically recoverable.”


Q: Then why the big deal about the ban?

A: “Politics. If the oil’s not there, the oil’s not there. Lifting the ban will not cause oil to appear where there is no oil. What determines whether a company will drill for oil is geology and economics. All of the mineral management studies of this area off the coast of South Carolina have shown that there are no oil reservoirs. Without economic quantities of oil, nobody is going to drill.”

Q: How much do we know about what oil is out there?

A: “Even though there has been a ban on drilling, there has not been a ban on exploration, and oil companies have not been rushing here to explore for oil. Before the ban, oil companies did look for oil and found none. I have heard that this is old data and we have new technology, and if the ban is lifted we’re going to go explore and explore and explore, and we’ll find oil. Believe me, if there were oil off South Carolina, there would be rigs out there right now. Before the offshore oil ban, if there had been economically viable reservoirs, South Carolina would have been an enticing drilling location; it would be easier and cheaper to develop an oil prospect off the South Carolina coast than many other areas that were developed at that time.”

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