The United States depends on resources from a number of overseas markets, which threaten to become more of a risk. Posted on 05/07/2006 2:22:10 AM PDT by M. Espinola
The nuclear standoff with Iran and insurgencies in Iraq and Africa have rattled world energy markets. But the threat to supply extends far beyond these hotspots.
The United States depends on resources from a number of overseas markets, which threaten to become more of a risk.
Those suppliers also include:
• Russia, whose brief energy conflict with Ukraine last winter severely hit the European Union. Moscow, which is flexing its energy muscle for geopolitical leverage, accounts for more than 10 percent of the world's daily oil output and a fifth of its natural gas. President Vladimir Putin's drive to reassert state influence over the nation's oil and gas sectors has spooked consumer nations.
• Saudi Arabia, the world's No. 1 oil producer and a key U.S. supplier. It has been singled out as a target by Osama bin Laden, and the country remains on alert after foiling an al-Qaida-linked attack on its vast Abqaiq oil processing plant in February. That attack prompted Kuwait to express concern about the security of its own oil facilities.
An additional threat to oil installations is the potential for insurgency fomented by Tehran among the Saudi Shiite minority - and those in neighboring oil-producing nations.
• Venezuela and Bolivia, where moves by populist leaders to impose more state control over the gas or oil sectors, gives them growing leverage to use energy as a political tool. Bolivia, which recently called out the army to enforce its claims, has South America's second-largest natural gas reserves after Venezuela.
Venezuela, whose President Hugo Chavez has threatened to blow up his country's oil fields in case of U.S. attack, is the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States - for now. Chavez is increasingly selling to China and Cuba, and his oil minister has threatened to stop supplying America.
• The Caspian Sea region, which has estimated oil reserves between 17 billion and 44 billion barrels and is potentially a key transit point for oil to the West. But it is rife with ethnic conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and the autonomous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Energy nationalism is also a factor - with Turkmenistan recently declaring its on-land gas and oil fields off-limits to foreign companies. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional alliance led by China and Russia, last year called on the United States to set a date for withdrawing forces from the region.
• The East China Sea, where conflicting claims to rich underwater gas reserves have added to historical rivalries between Japan and China.
In the first three months of this year, the Japanese military said it had scrambled fighter jets 107 times to intercept suspected Chinese spy planes - most of them over the East China Sea - compared to 13 times in all of 2005.
Anybody got a Stanley Steamer for sale ?
In the first three months of this year, the Japanese military said it had scrambled fighter jets 107 times to intercept suspected Chinese spy planes - most of them over the East China Sea - compared to 13 times in all of 2005.
Big deal...legal surveillance flights by unarmed aircraft in international airspace...The US conducts plenty of them. But I guess you could use it to justify the "fear premium" of $15 per barrel.
Typical Associated Press. | A look at key U.S. oil suppliers |
| • Russia |
| • Saudi Arabia |
| • Venezuela and Bolivia |
| • The East China Sea |
OK, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are in there, but both are behind Canada and Mexico.
Russia, China, and those other places are way down the list.
Another crappy AP atory. The leading import countries for the US are Mexico and Canada. How come they do NOT mention them?
As the price of oil goes up, it'll go up everywhere. If one source of supply is cut off, even if we get zero oil from there, that'll still cause the cost of oil here to rise.
Good post
The answer is a little complicated.
The following is a link to all petroleum products imported. It is broken down by product, company and country. And it is a lot of data.
Complicating the answer is what is not in the table. The table lists who imported the product, not who produced it. The owned field may be owned by several companies, operated by only one of those companies, refined by another company, transported by a yet another company and actually imported by a different company buying the product for delivery in the US. Some or all of those stages may be all one company is a few cases.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/data/import.xls
from
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/cli.html
Anyway, please continue contributing your sgae comments here on FR for others to understand.
Totally correct! In terms of the threats and potential world-wide economic chaos which could be triggered by the irrational actions of jihadist terrorist régime in Tehran, I can not fathom how Jimmy Carter can even be seen in public, never mind his public speaking engagements either blaming someone else for Iran plus acting as though he is not the originating cause which plunged the modernizing state of Iran back to dark ages of the 7th century.
The severe damage Carter & company deliberately caused both domestically, socially and internationally we are still adversely effected by to this day.
He was crumb who had the nerve to go on TV ordering the American public to drive at a snails pace, turn off the air conditioning, be stuffed into matchbox size cars, pay excessive interest rates, learn to live with runaway inflation, America held hostage, and on top of everything else, his infamous repeated Big Lie, "America was running out of energy" and the American motorist was to blame.
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