Bill Richardson Oil Quotations

We're here to try to find ways to, perhaps, encourage utilities to switch to natural gas so that we're not so dependent on home heating oil in this region,

Many of these countries ... were concerned about low oil prices a year ago, when (crude oil cost) $10 a barrel, ... So was Sen. Campbell in Colorado. But now they are at $30. They're too high. I think most countries are agreeing with that.

I support the offshore oil and gas leasing moratoriums that the Bush Administration has continued off coastal states including California and Florida. Now I want to ask the coastal states, the Bush Administration, and Congress to support leasing moratoriums for some ecologically sensitive onshore areas, as well.

We have worked with refiners to help them with transportation, with numerous other logistical initiatives so that they can get more product into the market, ... I will be meeting next week with refiners, with petroleum executives, with many others -- heating oil suppliers, to ensure that we get this product reserve into the market.

We have worked to get supply up and this temporary infusion of 30 million barrels of oil into the market will likely add an additional 3 to 5 million barrels of heating oil this winter if refineries are able to match higher runs in yields seen in the past,

We recognize that there are potential home heating oil shortages, ... We're concerned about natural gas too, both the prices and access and other issues.

We have been saying we need a home heating oil reserve, we've been saying that stocks are low, and we need (legislation) passed, ... We need the Congress to approve a reasonable trigger for releasing the oil in the reserve.

What is important to us is not just that OPEC and other nations make a decision to increase production, but that they do it and get oil into the market because this is not just the United States, ... ...What is most important here is consumer and producing countries need to have a stable price, and that helps them both.

We think that refining capacity is adequate ... clearly the Middle East situation has caused a disturbance in oil prices.

Crude and heating oil inventories remain alarmingly, stubbornly low,

Oil prices right now and prices at the pump -- there is no correlation.

This is a political campaign, ... I am the energy secretary for the Clinton-Gore administration. I want to fix the problem and I want to fix it with you. Oil industry profits are up. American people have questions about the high price of oil.

I want to find ways that we can do something about low income energy assistance ... how to improve transportation of home heating oil to the areas most in need, how to make sure the Coast Guard can get some of this (oil-carrying) vessel traffic through to New England,

In our meetings with oil producing countries, we simply and forcefully made our case that increased production is in the interest in both producing and consuming nations, ... We made the point that the world is consuming 75 million barrels per day, and it is producing 73.

The typical oil producer is a small business with many of the same problems encountered by small businesses in the retail and manufacturing industries.