Obele Oil Corporation Chief Executive Officer Paralee Obele says gas is so expensive because peak oil production has been hit.

Obele Oil Corporation Chief Executive Officer Paralee Obele says gas is so expensive because peak oil production has been hit.
Oil is being drained for good out of the world, and in a supply-and-demand marketplace, the supply is getting low while the demand is going up.
Obele believes the cost of a gallon of gas can be lowered if the U.S. Congress and president reduce or remove restrictions on oil drilling in the country and not penalize oil companies with a windfall profit tax.
The Obele Oil Corporation was founded 53 years ago by Ed Obele, a man who was raised in the Great Depression and created a string of shoe stores in Colorado from $1500 he borrowed from family and friends.
Paralee Obele, his daughter, said he got his start when an operator asked him to participate in a wildcat well, one where no one has drilled before. This first well produced 900 barrels of oil a day in a time when a barrel of oil was worth about three dollars.
Obele says she grew up in the oil business and her mother, Carol Obele, used to do all the secretarial work and would bottle some crude oil from new wells in mason jars to send to all the investors so they knew what had been “hit.”
A graduate of Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in business communications, she took over the management of the corporation in 1995.
“The one thing my father instilled in me is to always tell the truth,” Obele said, “and my company is run only on integrity.”
Gasoline is so expensive, she said, because the U.S. Congress and previous administrations have made the country dependent on foreign oil. Her trademarked motto is “American oil for Americans.”
Obele pointed out that China is drilling right off the Florida coast in U.S. territorial water, but her company is not allowed to drill there.
She would like her corporation to have the ability to drill in other parts of the nation, such as Alaska, North Dakota and Kansas.
“If the government would stay out of our business and let the beautiful free market run itself, then the price of gas and oil would be way lower,” Obele said.
She feels a lot of ecologists have really hurt the price and supply of oil in the country in pushing for regulation of exploration and drilling by the federal government.
Obele said she is for the creation of alternative or renewable energy.
Alternative or renewable energy is not contradictory to her position as head of an oil exploration and drilling
corporation, because, she said, there is a need to be open to change.
There will always be a market for oil in the future, she pointed out, as so many of the products Americans need or use, such as plastics, are made from oil.
This is why she is very much in favor of the day Americans no longer have a need for oil to fuel their cars, she said.
Obele said if the American nation were not dependent on foreign oil, then the free market would lower the price, since the oil is here.
“Its like food,” she said, “Let’s grow our food in our front yard and not ship it in from around the world.”

Greg Nix can be contacted at
282-7795, Ext. 122, or e-mail
gnix@larsonnewspapers.com