Middle East Oil Dependency and Peace and Riding...

no...thats why its a good question, lots of arguements, debate, professional
papers which contradict each other, all wonderful stuff.

Myself, I tend towards the "yup...its gonna happen...but we don't know when"
camp...but thats just my own guess in all of this.

 

That might be true if you owned the oil that you find in Saudi Arabia, but
you don't. The Saudis are free to extract and export as much of their oil
as they can or as little as they choose at whatever price they would like to
offer it. Today, their policy is to treat the US as welcome customers. I
don't count on that remaining true. And in any case, the costs to our
government of maintaining friendly relations with the Middle East are
considerable, even if they aren't all paid for at the pump. If we can do
research that reduces the cost of extracting American oil (from shale), that
puts a ceiling on Saudi greed or intransigency.

We have an analogous situation in Southern California, where the critical
resource is potable water. Desalination still costs about five times what
it takes to import Colorado River water, but it's part of the strategy
because other sources are uncertain and nobody can take the Pacific Ocean
away from us.

Rich, Urban Biker

 

Producing wells in Iraq look more attractive than oil-bearing sands in
Alberta because a major part of the cost of bringing that oil to market
(American pacification and occupation of Iraq) are not charged directly to
oil consumers, but are borne by the taxpayers as a whole and military
families in particular. If that situation were rectified by tariffs on
importing oil that reflected the political and military costs, tar sands
might look like a bargain indeed.

Rich, Urban Biker

 

Of course the marketplace doesn't prevent some very nasty wars and
other unpleasantness when a resource becomes scarce. See the last
100 years of history for lots of good examples.

 

Oil being oil and all....how

Its not Saudi greed, its American intransigence related to how we all want
to own 3 cars, which get 12mpg, and we want to drive them everywhere. The
Saudi's simply have a valuable commodity to sell and yes, they can do with
it as they will, they own it, its only fair. But when I cough up $50/BBL as
an American consumer, I could care less who makes how much money off of
it...if this wasn't true, people would stop buying the chinese made stuff at
walmart in a heartbeat. China isn't much better politically than Saudi
Arabia, just tyrants of a different stripe.

Don't I know about you guys using our water......the newspaper articles we
have around here related to how we should save it all for ourselves and stop
exporting to the greedy Californians make good reading.

 

You keep confusing someones reserve estimates of the tar sands as the

But in reality, they don't. America made a commitment to bombs and bullets
as part of its energy security a long time ago, and now the 3 or 4 hundred
billion we pump into the military is just overhead costs, much like keeping
the lights on in a store if its open or closed. Once you get used to the
burden, its no big deal.

Plus....$27/BBL investment for tar sands versus $0.10 Saudi oil? I'm pretty
certain it can still be shipped here for less than $26.90/BBL.

 

nothing wrong with bussin sum caps when things get rough....particularly
when you happen to bee the bess cap busser around!

 

afaik, USGS moved to Monterey.

 

They are now classified as proven reserves.

Don Binns
84 - Virago 1000

When an ill wind blows you can either build a hut or hoist a sail.

http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/reeky.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/banff.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/kananaskis.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/walkercalgary.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/calgarybrowning.htm

 

My question was not about capacity but of how much oil is actually
being exported from Iraq today.

Don Binns
84 - Virago 1000

When an ill wind blows you can either build a hut or hoist a sail.

http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/reeky.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/banff.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/kananaskis.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/walkercalgary.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/calgarybrowning.htm

 

Sure they are....tell it to Shell...they called theirs proven as
well....oops......

And another hickey, if they are proven reserves, they will disappear the
instant the price of oil drops below price of production/operation/capital
investment....poof....gone just as fast. Which is alot higher than what the
Saudi's can drive the price to, if they so desire.

 

couple million barrels a day.

 

That doesn't help me at all: Nissan Titan V8 or Mazda Miata. I need to know!

-- Michael

 

Just because you choose to hide your head in the sand denying the
simple truth does not alter the facts.

That number is somewhere around $21.00 per barrel. Please don't tell
me you think we are going to see a barrel of oil under $25.00 in the
foreseeable future.

Don Binns
84 - Virago 1000

When an ill wind blows you can either build a hut or hoist a sail.

http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/reeky.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/banff.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/kananaskis.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/walkercalgary.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/calgarybrowning.htm

 

That's not the only way to become energy independent.

Water, freedom, basic human rights, justice...


--


http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/


Don't let bu$h do to the United States what his very close
friend and top campaign contributor, Ken Lay, did to Enron...

"Personally, I don't think all the Iraqis on earth are
worth even a single American life." - A usenet rabid
right wing extremist terrorist.

 

Well below Canada's production.

I also hear that some reservoirs in southern Iraq wells have been so
badly damaged that their ultimate recovery rates might be only 15%-25%

Don Binns
84 - Virago 1000

When an ill wind blows you can either build a hut or hoist a sail.

http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/reeky.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/banff.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/kananaskis.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/walkercalgary.htm
http://www3.telus.net/public/dbinns/calgarybrowning.htm

 

Of course, spending hundreds of billions of tax payer
dollars and killing or wounding many tens of thousands of
people to steal other peoples' oil isn't quite as easy as
the chickenhawks and the oil cartel made it out to be, either.
And then there's the fact that oil supplies are limited,
peak oil has been reached, and it's a very dirty form of
energy.

Actually, it will never just "come along". It will have to be
actively pursued. We should be investing serious money and
resources in that direction now, rather than in illegal, immoral
wars with the goal of stealing what little oil remains. That's
an insane and immoral policy. It's also short lived.


--


"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really
don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
-- George W. Bush, March 13, 2002


"I think this is the worst government the US has ever
had in its more than 200 years of history. It has
engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not
only in foreign policy and economics but also in social
and environmental policy.....This is not normal government
policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil
disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as
possible....What we have here is a form of looting."
- George A. Akerlof, 2001 Nobel prize laureate economist

http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/

 

Peak oil has been reached eh? Well...in another year, Colin will be claiming
peak oil has been reached, and the year after that, and so on and so forth.
He's been chicken littling it since the late 90's, so you'll forgive me if I
don't drop into a tizzy at the mention of us being "at peak"....like we were
last year...and the year before...and somehow really smart engineers eek out
a little more here and there and presto....another peak!

As far as Pax Americana, its here, we spend the money on a military to use
as we see fit, and if we want to invade the odd country whenever we feel
like it...well...there is hardly anybody around to stop us unless they wanna
use nukes. the world is already america's, we just don't advertise much...

It already is. Biomass, wave energy, geothermal, Iceland I beleive is trying
to go completely hydrogen-based over the next few years, 5 years go we
didn't have hybrid cages available, now we do, its already started....

like I said...we are...

oh please....quantifying a couple of gagillian barrels as "what little
remains" is crap, and no wars are illegal, just messy. You subscribe to the
UN theory of "everybody should listen to us because we're worthless as
anything other than as a debate society without the strength of the United
States" do you?

Strong countries do...everybody else sits around and bitches about it like
school children.....

Short....8 wonderful years...and then we'll see if the democrats don't come
up with a george clone of their own now that we know we prefer george to
left leaning liars....

 

Just because you choose to hide your head in the sand denying the

Listen, do you want to get into a full blown discussion on reserves, their
definitions, the categories involved, how and who manipulates them? I've
done them for publicly traded companies as well as a being a consultant,
I've pushed them through GAP audits without a hitch and just because you
call something a "simple truth" means you are completely clueless as to what
"proven reserves" as defined by SPE and SPEE are.

I paraphrase...Bruce Babbit...Secretary of Interior, United States of
America, circa late 90's....

"We will never again see $30/BB oil"........

He was wrong within half a decade....wanna take bets now on how long before
you are too?

 

Not that it matters, but maybe. You do realize we don't take all of the
Iraqi exports, just like we don't take all of yours?

Ultimate recovery on non EOR oil wells and fields is usually in that range
right outta the box. I would recommend some reading on the changes made
between the USSR and what a slightly more "modern" Russia has been able to
accomplish with problems very similar to those which you attribute to Iraq.

Subscribing to the "tar sands theory", it would be easier and probably
cheaper for the Iraqi's to "mine" their oil, I bet there recovery costs
would still be less than what the tar sands are.