Yep!
Whatever happens, I think that the price of oil will go higher. That is because of inflation - which is going to take off. (I have been saying that for years ... but, I cling on to my prediction.) OPEC, in my view, is finished, because the the rift between Saudi Arabia and everyone else.
I hope it does go higher. Anyone with a knowledge of what’s been going on with oil sales understands this has nothing to do with a marketable product sales. It is there to keep countries unable to grow anything except dope to gather funds to purchase food to feed their people. We don’t have to buy foreign oil to survive.
Today, the U.S. actually gets most of its imported oil from Canada and Latin America. And many Americans might be surprised to learn that the U.S. now imports roughly the same amount of oil from Africa as it does from the Persian Gulf.
Still others would be shocked that America is one of the world’s largest oil producers, and close to 40 percent of U.S. oil needs are met at home.
Most of the imports currently come from five countries: Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. Saudi Arabia and Nigeria are receiving sales due to the oil for food program at around 3% each of our intake. Canada gets around 15% and the Latin America countries like Venezuela and Mexico are getting over 19% combined. The rest is spread between all the other countries we buy from to help them financially.
In 1998, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) examined ANWR’s coastal plain, specifically Area 1002, to estimate the amount of technically recoverable oil. Based on the geology, the USGS projected that there could be as much as 16 billion barrels of oil just in the coastal section tested alone that covers 1.5 million acres. That means there is still almost 18 million acres still untouch by oil drilling. This section is what is used to supply for that 8% of the reserve oil we are currently pipe lining down. But a vast majority of it is stopped in Valdez, and sold to Japan so they can refine it and sell it back to us at a loss so they can keep the economy’s head above water.
We aren’t even starting to go after that area. If we did, and expanded the pipe line from Canada to the south along with developing the Florida coast and the Rockies, we could tell them all to go fly a kite. But if we did, they would starve to death and have to go looking next door for food. Then we get to play war again. It’s a trade off, not a market.
rwood