I said Unocal produced less than 500,000 barrels a day. We do not receive all of Unocal's production. Most of their reserves are in Asia. I suspect most of their Asian production is sold in Asia, although I haven't been able to find any figures. I suspect that if China had purchased Unocal, the US would have "lost" less than 500,000 barrels a day from Unocal.
Now, let us assume that we did not lose this 4% and, instead, gained an additional 4% in imported oil. Now the difference is 8%, which I think it's pretty significant. Repeat the scenario and now it becoems crucial.
Sure, and if that was quadrupled, then we'd be talking about 32%. LOL!
For the uninformed sheep - most of Unocal's production is outside of the US. They devested most of their US properties in the US several years ago. The majority of their production is in Thailand (gas, not oil) and Indonesia. Additionally, they own ~12% of the pipeline out of Baku and bid positions in Bangladesh. Very little of their production ever hits the US shores... It'll be interesting to see the reaction of folks when the chicoms go after another US based oil company (Marathon?) Folks in the US buy more Chineese goods at Walmart than the total value of Unocal...