The problem, if problem there be, is not "foreign oil." It's oil. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to pull something over on you.
Foreign oil 8
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Posted 2:24 PM on 22 Jul 2005
by David Roberts -
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I've pretty much concluded that any story or speech that includes the term "foreign oil" is full of it. There is no foreign oil or domestic oil. There's a worldwide oil market. Cut off oil from one source? Another source compensates. Produce more oil domestically? Prices drop a tiny bit, equally for everyone.
David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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odograph Posted 10:00 am
22 Jul 2005
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Bart Anderson Posted 10:53 pm
23 Jul 2005
See, for example, Can we have a little reality, please? at The Oil Drum.
I'm convinced that as oil becomes less freely available, it will be treated as a strategic national resource -- not a commodity. The US may be caught flat-footed because we have an ideological obsession with the free market. It's unwise to extrapolate from the last few decades when the paradigm may be shifting on us.
Increasingly, alliances are being formed around energy resources. The US has long had an alliance based on oil with Saudi Arabia. But now China has signed contracts with Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela seems to be spearheading an alliance of Latin American countries, with energy as a prime common interest.
It is ominous that possession of oil fields such as those in Baku was a key objective in World War II.
We need to reduce our dependence on oil not only for environmental reasons, but to prevent wars.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:53 am
24 Jul 2005
Why would Canada let Chinese multinational corporations buy into it's tar sands oil reserrve?
Because once those oil reserves are partially owned by a foreign corporation the right to regulate the exploitation of those resources passes from government of, by, and for we the people..to corporate boardrooms.
The corporations of each nation "trade" the rights to each other's resouces in order to disenfranchise those pesky governments that are owned by citizens.
Creating a world in which every nation is run like the neo-conservative (liberal and moderate neis are all alike) paradigm, Saudi Arabia!
Yep jd, we are trying to sound a wake up call! Dave says..go back to sleep, let the people who know best run worldwide energy policy.
This is the best of all possible worlds, because it's the only possible world.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:55 am
24 Jul 2005
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jdhlax Posted 4:57 am
24 Jul 2005
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David Roberts Posted 7:37 am
24 Jul 2005
I'm convinced that as oil becomes less freely available, it will be treated as a strategic national resource -- not a commodity.
What does this mean, exactly? Right now (simplifying things, obviously), a country with oil faces the question: How much is this oil worth? If they are offered $60 a barrel and say No, it's because they've decided that they need the oil more than they need the $60. Perhaps they would accept $70.
Perhaps some day they won't accept anything under $200. But do you think there's ever a time that they just won't sell it, period?
Maybe you think there's a time when they just won't sell it to us, period (or won't sell it to us at the same price they sell it to others). So, okay, maybe they'll sell it to India instead. India marks it up $10 a barrel and sells it to us. Once it's out on the world market, eventually willing buyers will find willing sellers.
Perhaps, theoretically, there could be a vast coalition of oil-producing and oil-consuming countries, all of which agree not to let the U.S. get any of it. But that seems far-fetched to me, and nothing in what you or the Oil Drum has said paints a picture of how it could happen.
I'm all ears, though.
www.grist.org
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odograph Posted 9:26 am
24 Jul 2005
it did strike me as funny that a site that worries about a "100 mile diet" wouldn't worry about "10,000 mile oil ... but maybe that's just me."
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:35 pm
24 Jul 2005
We seem to be discussing two propositions:
Are there times when oil is not allocated according to the market?
If so, are those times coming again?
Obviously the extreme case would be war, when selling oil to the enemy would get you shot. The government keeps a tight rein over oil; gasoline is rationed. Oil might be sold or exchanged with allies, but certainly would not be sold to neutral parties if they marked up the price and re-sold it to enemy powers. If possible, a country would take the oil resources of the enemy by force, as Hitler wanted to seize the Baku oilfields (World War II and Azerbaijan)
Short of war, a country might gain control of oil resources through subterfuge (using economic pressure and espionage to overthrow an unfriendly regime and install a friendly one).
Alternately, an oil-rich country might supply oil at below-market prices to an ally, as the USSR did to Cuba.
So, can we agree that there ARE times when the market paradigm fails?
If so, the question then becomes: will we encounter those times in the future? If we expect there to be wars or international tensions in the future, then we certainly will see oil allocated NOT according to the market.
After following energy issues intensely for about a year, I see multiple signs that energy concerns are driving political events. The viewpoints come from the left and the right, but the big story remains the same.
The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has launched a regional oil initiative to provide fuel at cheaper prices to 15 Caribbean nations. Mr Chavez announced the Petrocaribe plan at a regional summit in Venezuela's city of Puerto La Cruz.
He said the region had suffered centuries of imperialism and needed to strike out on its own. Critics say Mr Chavez is using Venezuela's oil to secure diplomatic influence in the Caribbean. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4636067.stm
Of the dozen or so locations mentioned in Pentagon or media accounts of new basing locations, a majority--including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Gabon, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tunisia--either possess oil themselves or abut major pipelines and supply routes.
Imperial Reach by Michael T. Klare
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050425&s=klare
By aggressively curbing America's energy consumption, Friedman argues, the Bush administration could reduce the global price of oil to the point where it would force regimes in the Middle East to diversify their economies, thereby priming them for democratic reform.
Interview with Thomas Friedman
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/04/05/friedman/index.html
Good summary:
From Washington to New Delhi, Caracas to Moscow and Beijing, national leaders and corporate executives are stepping up their efforts to gain control over major sources of oil and natural gas as the global struggle for energy intensifies. Never has the competitive pursuit of untapped oil and gas reserves been so acute, and never has so much money as well as diplomatic and military muscle been deployed in the contest to win control over major foreign stockpiles of energy. To an unprecedented degree, a government's success or failure in these endeavors is being treated as headline news, and provoking public outcry when a rival power is seen as benefiting unfairly from a particular transaction.
The Global Struggle for Energy by Michael T. Klare
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/05/energy.html
Dave Roberts >> Perhaps, theoretically, there could be a vast coalition of oil-producing and oil-consuming countries, all of which agree not to let the U.S. get any of it. But that seems far-fetched to me...
OPEC showed that a coalition of oil-producing states could endanger the US oil supply (or at least make it more expensive.) But nothing so extreme is necessary to show the vulnerability of the US to disruptions in the supply of cheap foreign oil. Civil war in Saudi Arabia, a Venezuelan embargo of the US, that's all it would take to give the US economy a nasty jolt.
We in the US are not used to thinking this way, though I'm sure the US military planners are. We've lived through decades of US supremacy, relative peace and abundant oil (except for a couple of oil shocks). But the world is changing.
It's strange to find myself agreeing with neo-cons and nationalistic conservatives -- but I think they are correct to see oil as important for national security. From their point of view, they are right to question the sale of Unocal to the Chinese.
I would draw a different conclusion, that conservation and development of non-fossil energy are crucial not only for the environment but for world peace.
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