Re: something we can do about gas prices

In a message dated 02/17/2003 10:44:14 AM Eastern Standard Time,
Cornergar@aol.com writes:

>
> I believe BP (Britsh Petroleum) owns Amoco now. H ave to wonder how many of
>
> those figures are still true. Still..it's quite an eye opener.
>
>

I wasn't going to continue this, as it's political and not gardening, but
since several have raised the question, I will pass on the following comments
from my son who is an analyst in the petroleum industry.  Then I will not
continue the political thread.

For starters, BP and Phillips are not the same company, Conoco merged with
Phillips, and has substantial holdings in the United Arab Emirates.  BP owns
Amoco, so any Oil Amoco imports is really BP oil.  Citgo gets all of its oil
from Venezuela because they are owned by the Venezuelan national oil company,
Petrobras.  I'm curious that Chavez is so preferable to the Saudi's.  Shell,
Exxon Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP etc. also happen to be the largest producers
of American oil (accounting for over half of domestic production), so
boycotting them also puts American oil off the market and Americans out of
work as it is quite difficult to differentiate middle eastern gas pumps from
ones suplied from Texas, California, or Wyoming.
 
As the U.S. is only capable of producing about 6 million barrels of oil per
day, but burns closer to 17 Million barrels a day.  And as we imported about
2 million barrels a day from Venezuela (before the strike), all they
exported, and another 1.5 Million barrels a day from Mexico, all they export,
and another 1 million barrels a day from Canada, all they export, and another
couple million from Europe (so they can import oil from the middle east as
well), Where does the author of this note propose we make up the additional
oil we burn, but don't produce ourselves, if we can't get it from the middle
east?  Most of West Africa's oil is already being burned in Europe.  China,
Japan, Korea, etc. use all of the oil coming out of Australia and the
Phillipines, along with much of the oil BP and Phillips produce in Alaska.  I
guess we could make up our additional need for 6 million or so barrels a day
currently coming from the middle east by going to war with Europe, and taking
all of their North sea Production, and by going to war with the orient, and
taking all of their oil.  Of course, after the war, they would probably have
to get all of their oil from the middle east.
 
Ultimately, with 22-25 million barrels a day of the worlds 70 million or so
total barrels of production coming from the middle east, some one needs to
burn middle east oil.  If we don't burn it, then we need to replace it with
oil from somewhere else.  California?  Florida?  ANWR?  Of course, if we
drilled all of these places flat out, we would still need several additional
million barrels a day from the middle east.
 
Sorry, but this chain mail is not very well thought out, but could do some
real damage if enough people acted on it.

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