More on Offshore Drilling

I previously made a post on offshore drilling, stating something to the effect that more offshore drilling is NOT going to help the prices at the pump for some time.

After discussing with my professor tonight how our prices on oil are indeed based on futures, she assured me still that offshore drilling will not help the prices at the pump; however, if we were to expand drilling onshore, lower 48, then yes, that would help. The futures market is only based on 3 to 6 months of information into the future. Once again, since with offshore drilling the leases themselves wouldn't even go through for at least 1-2 years, and then with all the exploratory and developmental wells to be drilled, etc., literally the oil they get won't even be produced for several years.

To reiterate my point: Chesapeake announced last year that they found the largest natural gas reserve in the Gulf of Mexico last summer. They are allowed to drill there, but said that the soonest that gas would be produced was at least 10 years. Natural gas prices were unaffected by that announcement and have continued to rise.