OK. At the cost of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and thousands oupon thousands of lives, we have secured the flow of oil from the middle east (right?).

Thanks to mother nature, we are experiencing one of the mildest autumns in memory (my furnace just kicked on for the first time this morning) so heating oil consumption is down.

Sales of fuel-efficient & hybrid vehicles is on the rise.

WHY THEN does a 2-week oil production halt in MEXICO cause the price of crude to jump to an all-new high??? M-E-X-I-C-O for God's sake!

WTF!

If the anti-christ is truly here...he's the CEO of Exxon-Mobil. I'm sure of it!

PurpleJedi said:

LOL yeah, right...

As long as there is unrest in the Middle East, prices will continue to rise. Just wait to see what happens in Iran
[Edited 10/29/07 10:51am]

Artificial Scarcity

BobGeorge67 said:

That has got to be one of the biggest crimes in modern history.

Think about what motivated the senior Bush to "save" Kuwait, and got us in this whole mess to begin with!

Though I don't truly believe in Hell...I haven't totally discounted it...and if it exists, I am sure that both Bushes will be sipping lava-martinis in the company of Stalin and Bin-Ladin.

Because we mine oil all over the world at barely utility for consumers. We're living beyond our oil means, and one slip-up leads to a price-hike to stop speculatory buyers, and reserve purchasers so that consumers can still be supplied, whilst at the same time stemming their consumption.

lilgish said:

I've heard of that...and the complicity of the U.S. government by not releasing (and instead expanding) it's "emergency hoard".

I am neither defending, nor chastising, the oil policies of the U.S.. I am merely posting facts in order to foster discussion...


The "emergency hoard" is held in reserve...
United States proven oil reserves declined to a little more than 21 gigabarrels by the end of 2004 according to the Energy Information Administration, a 46% decline from the 39 gigabarrels it had in 1970 when the huge Alaska North Slope ('ANS') reserves were booked. Since there have been millions of oil wells drilled in the US and there is nowhere left for an elephant the size of ANS to remain hidden, it appears that US oil reserves are on a permanent downward slide. As oil fields get closer to the end of production, estimates of what is left become more accurate. Consequently, US oil reserve numbers are very accurate compared to those of other countries.


How much oil does the US Produce on it's own?
United States crude oil production peaked in late 1970 at over 4 gigabarrels per year, but declined to 1.8 gigabarrels per year by early 2006 (only 11 years of future production). In fact, production in the fall of 2005 fell to only 1.5 gigabarrels per year as a result of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico — a level not seen since shortly after World War II. At the same time, US consumption of petroleum products increased to over 7.3 gigabarrels per year. The difference ( 5.5 gigabarrels ) was mostly made up by imports, with the largest supplier being Canada, which increased its exports of crude oil and refined products to the US to 0.8 gigabarrels per year at the end of 2005. Imports of oil and products now account for nearly half of the US trade deficit. In early 2007, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy projected that in 2007 oil consumption would rise to 20.9 million barrels per day, while oil production would fall to 5.1 million barrels per day, meaning that oil consumption would be nearly four times as high as oil production.

Other options
The United States has the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 800 gigabarrels of recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. Unfortunately, oil shale is much more difficult and expensive to extract and refine than conventional oil and oil sands. Oil shale must be produced by mining rather than drilling, and the shale contains a waxy oil precursor known as kerogen rather than liquid petroleum. Despite that, oil shale could be developed given high enough oil prices, and the technology for converting oil shale to oil has been known since the Middle Ages, although the scale of the mining and processing operations would be vastly greater than anything done in history.
[Edited 10/29/07 11:07am]
[Edited 10/29/07 11:07am]

Ten years from now, you'll be thinking these were the good old days!

wlcm2thdwn said:

I hear that...
One day, I'll be telling my grandkids,
"Kids, back in '07 we only paid $2.87 for a gallon of gas. But I didn't use much gas because I walked to work. 12 miles, BOTH ways, uphill, in waist deep snow, while fighting the Nazi's..."

BobGeorge67 said: