Locations of concern include coastal waters such as those near Florida; the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) (beyond state coastal areas); and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The views in this article are my own, particularly the peak oil views. Many of the comments about technical issues are based on discussions with the American Petroleum Institute (API). I recently participated in an API bloggers conference phone call on the subject of "Exploration and Production." We talked about offshore drilling and ANWR. A listing of the people involved can be found here, and a transcript of the call can be found here.

Sands are shifting for oil supply

The world continues to run rapidly out of oil and natural gas, which points to dramatically higher prices in a handful of years.

That was the message from Henry Groppe, a lanky Texan who advises oil companies and investors around the world about the world of prices. His firm, Groppe, Long & Littell, is based in Houston and was founded after he did stints as a chemical engineer for Saudi Arabia's Aramco, Dow Chemical, Monsanto and Texaco.

"The fundamentals always prevail, which is that the minute you start producing, you are depleting your resource," he told an audience of investors last week at a conference sponsored by Calgary's Pengrowth Energy Trust.

He showed production curves in the North Sea and Mexico that are catastrophically sudden in terms of their declines.

"This has a huge impact on the economies of Britain and Mexico," he said. "Britain became an oil importer this year for the first time in decades."

Oil production worldwide peaked months ago, but figures and prices don't reflect that yet because the production of liquids stripped from natural gas has been filling the gap, he said.