Posted on 01/24/2008 7:15:13 AM PST by xjcsa
Until the cost of extracting shale oil, approaches the costs of pumping light, sweet crude from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, the capital market will continue to invest in more oil fields and purchase oil from abroad. If you increase the cost of energy, everything else goes up. And then there are the environmentalists and Congress who are skewing the marketplace by preventing exploration and drilling and refining. We aren't going to conserve our way out of this mess.
No Food For Fuel !! ..bump
I'm not sure where you get that math. Saudi Arabia provides 15% of our imported oil, Canada provides 19% or about 28% more than Saudia Arabia. Most of our imported oil comes from OPEC.
10,092 MBPD All Countries
5,417 MBPD OPEC
4,675 MBPD Non OPEC
2,147 MBPD Persian Gulf
1,882 MBPD Canada
1,465 MBPD Saudi Arabia
1,386 MBPD Mexico
1,173 MBPD Venezuela
1,028 MBPD Nigeria
I spent five years in the Kingdom and visited the wheat fields, which were using unreplenishable water from deep wells. At one time they were the fifth or sixth largest exporter of wheat. The reason was quite simple: corruption. Many members of the Royal Family made a lot of money from wheat production, even though it made no sense in terms of the production costs per bushel.
Go to the yearly table --- http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbbl_a.htm --- and read the definition. You list the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia as separate, yet the Saudi exports to the US are included in the Persian Gulf numbers. Same thing with the OPEC numbers.
2006 was the last full year reported by EIA and here are the top 5 countries of origin in thousands of barrels.
Canada -- 637,854
Mexico -- 575,501
Saudi Arabia -- 519,236
Venezuala -- 417,000
Nigeria -- 378,760
From all countries, we imported 3,693,081 thousand barrels vs 3,404,894 in the year 2001 an increase of almost 300,000. But imports from the Persian Gulf region, have decreased over that same time frame from 972,479 in 2001 to 788,432 in 2006.
No, I am using data is not more than a year old as you are.
Go to the last 12 reported months. Saudi Arabia has sent us more crude than Mexico.
I did not intend them to be read as separate. As you said, they are included in the larger number. I was not trying to define the Persian Gulf as being separate from Saudi Arabia. Just as the EIA does, I included it for reference in the country data.
In October the US imported 401,452 million bbls of crude oil and products a month worldwide with 43,394 coming from Saudi Arabia. That works out to 10.8%.
Most of our imported oil comes from OPEC.
True, but it is about 50-50. Of course OPEC includes Nigeria and Venezuela. In terms of crude oil and products, then we get most of our supplies from non-OPEC countries.
Why did you add in products? The author said crude oil, not total petroleum products. I was pointing out the author's incorrect statement. Have you looked at the products we get from Mexico? Most of them are residual oil, unfinished oils and other low value products not capable of being used for gasoline or diesel production.
The Saudis send far more of their oil elsewhere.
And if we were more energy independent, even less of it would come to the US.
2006
Mexico -- 575,501
Saudi Arabia -- 519,236
And since the Mexico has continued to decline and Saudi Arabia has grown. Over the last reported 12 months the values for crude oil now stand at:
Nov 2006 - Oct 2007
Saudi Arabia -- 521,814
Mexico -- 514,074
U.S. Crude Oil Imports from Mexico
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrimusmx1m.htm
U.S. Crude Oil Imports from Saudi Arabia
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrimussa1m.htm
The trend is getting worse for funding those that consider us enemies and sending our dollars to foreign nations. It is not a trend that is in our interests.
Rockymountian News said it would be $30 a barrel for Exon. Shell said $40. It is doable
I couldn't agree more. However, the world's demand for oil will continue to increase. There will be no shortage of customers. And most of the world's exportable oil is in the Middle East. That's the point. And the Saudis, with the largest reserves and the ability to pump up to 10 million bbls a day, have excess capacity above their OPEC cap. They are not our enemy and we are competing against the Chinese and Japanese for long term oil contracts.
The US population growth also affects demand. We will add 167 million people in the next 50 years. They will need energy as well.
If it is doable, what is stopping it? What kind of capital investment is required and how long will it take?
And the trend has since reversed itself.
In fact God could come down out of the sky right now and give us all the gasoline we'd need for the rest of our lives and it wouldn't solve the problem; you'd still have people spending three to five hours in traffic every day in metro areas getting to and from work. At some point the psychiatric bills are going to be more than any nation could afford.
One year does not a trend make. And there is nothing wrong with getting oil from Saudi Arabia.
I have been making these same arguments here on FR for years. There is a strong undercurrent of technological utopianism here (the idea that some "silver bullet" will be discovered that will eliminate scarcity and change human nature) that is as un-conservative as any other kind of utopianism.
Whether we get our oil from Canada or from Saudi Arabia, the fact remains that the price of crude can be greatly influenced by fluctuations in OPEC supply. OPEC can influence US elections by squeezing supply and thus the price of gasoline and thus the world and US economy.
The net result is that American politicians tend to suck up to OPEC nations and Islamic causes at the expense of free countries like Israel.
In this we disagree.
I do not comprehend ignoring many of our resources while funding those that fund Islamic hatred of us.
How do you feel about 3 years of declining Mexico oil production?
World Oil Supply, 2003-2007
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t22.xls
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