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Wednesday, January 21. 2009

Where does our oil come from?

Most from the US, second most from Canada. From The Myth of America's Oil Addiction:



The United States consumes about 21 million barrels of oil a day. Just over a third is domestically produced, while the rest is imported from a diverse array of sources from Latin America to Canada to Africa and the Middle East. The top five sources are geographically diverse: Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. If Americans want to wring their hands in fear of being held hostage to oil imports, they might worry about a Big Five conspiracy: a secret Riyadh-Ottawa-Mexico City-Caracas-Lagos cartel that turns off the tap one day. If that sounds impossible and ridiculous, it’s because it is.


Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 17:39 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

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I just checked this out with my resident oil expert, the man I live with, who spent his lifetime working in the oil industry. He says the above statement is pretty much on the money. Which means that the egregious and outrageous Hoogo Chavez doesn't have as much power over us as he thinks he does. Nor does Saudi Arabia.

What all oil producing countries do is to sell to a general market sometimes called "the world oil pool." So if one country gets pissed at another, it can't just jump up and down and say "they can't have any of our oil." The country wanting the oil simply buys what oil it needs from another middleman, probably at a higher price, and gets what it needs. So no cartel can completely "turn off the tap," as it were.

If we want to use our brains on this problem for a change, however, it would make excellent sense to produce our oil domestically whenever possible. I'm sure you are aware that our politicians don't want us to produce the oil which is on our offshore areas off the Florida coast. But Cuba has already sold drilling rights to China in the waters which are contiguous to ours in the same channel. Then there's the large oil shale deposits right here on land, which Harry Reid and his merry Democrats are trying to designate as protected land [for snail darters, or rattlesnakes or something] ... held a special Sunday session last month to do so.

If we do become short on oil, it's because of vicious mischief like this.

Marianne
#1 Marianne Matthews on 2009-01-21 18:39 (Reply)
Yes, vicious mischief indeed. Also, they assume that these domestic industries - petrochemicals, nuclear power, mining engineering - can all be turned off and on again as with a faucet. But in reality people retire, go in to other fields, or don't go in to what they see as a dying profession. So if and when we do want to re-start the nuclear power industry for example, we will no longer have much of a civilian industry to revive. We will buy our reactors from France, Japan or elsewhere. Or more likely, the reactor and the power company that runs the reactor may be from one of these nations. In the case of oil, we are still better off and a strong nucleus of talent is still in Texas and the Gulf, even if many of their people are increasingly headquartered in places like Dubai.
#2 Skookumchuk on 2009-01-21 19:08 (Reply)
The democrats led by their extremist environmental friends seem oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world is in a sprint to secure energy reserves. We on the other hand seem determined to make the noose from which to hang ourselves by refusing to access what we have in terms of domestic energy...When we see ten dollar/gallon gas it will be too late...And, while it may be true that no single enemy can deny us oil. We don't need a cartel to deny us oil or drive prices into the stratosphere when we have Wallstreet and their pals in Frankfurt, London, Beijing, Dubai, et al as last summer's events made clear...
#3 Scott Wiggins on 2009-01-21 20:08 (Reply)
Unfortunately, Democrats have a genius for insanity. They presently want to stop the importation of Alberta 'dirty' tar sands oil.

China is anxious to sign us up to long term supply contracts. If the Dems do, and we and China do, then no more oil from Alberta. About 1/3 of your supply I think. Makes no nevermind to us, but once we build the pipelines and tanker facilities, then we ain't going back.

So the taps do not get turned off over night, but how much more friction do you think the US economy can take? I think you have 0% capacity for friction left. Null comma null, as my German relatives say.
#4 Fred Z on 2009-01-21 23:23 (Reply)
A rare post for me to strongly disagree with. This is one of those situations where you are quoting truth but it is not the whole truth.

You need to bear in mind that:
- the US is exceptionally dependent upon oil (tho' see below);
- Canada's exports of oil will not be able to increase significantly (same with Venezuela);
- Mexico's exports of oil are collapsing - as its oil production (esp Cantarell) is collapsing (and it's state apparatus may also be collapsing - see the recently published US military report comparing it to Pakistan);
- the US is at the end of a long supply chain for Nigerian, but especially for Middle Eastern oil, and potentially hostile-to-the-US powers are much closer; one key worry is that this long supply chain is extremely vulnerable to 4th gen warfare models (see John Robb's stuff on this);
- the US is at present balancing precariously above bankruptcy, and if it totters into that state (= the dollar losing most of its value) then the states with surpluses will be in a better place to purchase such oil as is available on the open market - which is, in any case, going to be less than before, not least because countries like China are taking oil off the market through the establishment of long-term deals with places like Sudan (thereby enabling the Darfur crisis but that's a whole other story).

OK, something a bit positive: the US system is a) very resilient, and b) very dynamic - which makes me think that after going through a 5-10 year crisis period it will bounce back strongly on the basis of i) conservation and ii) exploitation of other resources, especially wind and solar. It's just a question of how bad that 5-10 year period will be, and what the world-wide consequences will be.

Can I recommend Matt Simmons (former Bush energy advisor) as a good go-to source for information on all of this. His site: http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches[/u
#5 Sam Norton (Link) on 2009-01-22 07:22 (Reply)
sorry, that last link didn't come out right - chop '[/u' from the end. I had to muck about with it to get past the anti-spam feature, though I don't know why.
#5.1 Sam Norton (Link) on 2009-01-22 07:24 (Reply)
Our economy requires fuel and power to move and the workers required to safely and effectively produce and distribute it are highly skilled. We need to do more. A lot more, but pipeline and port and power line decisions are tough decisions. Critically important though. Large amounts of public money and public interest involved. Also, if Alberta oil is declined or tariffed by the USA, Canada will be very badly hurt, imo. The supply line from Canada to China is pretty long.
The Dems are not likely to agree though. It seems lots of money and attention and effort will continue being directed elsewhere, like to the carbon market because of global warming or to expensive and so far ineffective alternative energy, or to the consumption end with energy efficient bike lanes and light bulbs and small cars.
#6 Patina on 2009-01-22 10:54 (Reply)
WHERE TO BUY AMERICAN GASOLINE. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON.


Are you aware that the Saudis are boycotting American products? In addition, they are gouging us on oil prices.
Shouldn't we return the favor? Can't we take control of our own destiny and let these giant oil importers know who REALLY generates their profits, their livings? How about leaving American Dollars in America and reduce the import/export deficit?
An appealing remedy might be to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill up your car you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia . Just purchase gas from companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.
Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up my tank, I'm sending my money to people who I get the impression want me, my family and my friends dead.

The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell...................................... 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco.................... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil.......................... 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway............. 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco................................... 62,231,000 barrels
And CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hates America and openly avows our economic destruction! (We pay Chavez's regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)

The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $100 per barrel, that's over $550 million PER DAY ($200 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!! It won't stop here - oil prices could go to $200 a barrel or higher if we keep buying their product.

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil: .
Sunoco.....................0 barrels
Conoco.. .................0 barrels
0ASinclair...................0 barrels
BP / Phillips........... 0 barrels
Hess........................0 barrels
ARC0........................0 barrels
Maverick...................0 barrels
Flying J...................0 barrels
Valero.......................0 barrels
Murphy Oil USA*.....0 barrels
*Sold at WalMART > , gas is from South Arkansas and fully USA owned and produced.
*Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens..

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have a real impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers With the help of the internet, it's really simple to do.. Now, don't wimp out at this point....keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at only ten more (30 x 10 = 300)....and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)....and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers!!!!!!!

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it...THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE-the entire population of the United States of America !!!!

Again, all you have to do is forward this message to 10 people. How long would that really take you? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people, within one day all 300 MILLION people could theoretically be contacted during the next eight days
#7 Mario Perez on 2011-03-18 10:39 (Reply)

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