I don’t understand why that would affect prices here. We have so much of our own drilling going on that surely we aren’t still importing tons of oil, are we? Maybe I’m just not up on this subject....
Apparently the Oil internationals would raise prices everywhere to reflect global market rates.
“I don’t understand why that would affect prices here. We have so much of our own drilling going on that surely we aren’t still importing tons of oil, are we? Maybe I’m just not up on this subject....”
Probably because of the mess world markets have made. In good stable times, it keeps prices low, but in times like these when a nation should be able to keep its resources local, the oil will just flow to the highest bidder, thus prices will jump. Obama is right about one thing, oil is a shackle but nobody has developed a good alternative, unless we want to walk and live in the dark.
Oil is fungible. What is drilled here doesn’t necessarily stay here. If the world wide price of oil goes up then we can’t keep it lower here because it will be purchased by someone else and the price goes up to meet that export demand.
Well... that's how the ruling elite make a killing in the stock market.
While the US imports of crude oil have been falling, we still import over 7 million barrel a day.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_m.htm
While we only get 0.3 million a day from Iraq, all the other folks that normally get oil from Iraq will be buyiing on the same world market, trying to get more and the global price will rise.