Sober Realist

Is Mexico on Its Way to Becoming an Oil Importer?

Georealist has it right. Now I'm expecting Brian Pursley to comment on this article in order to spread his fantasy gospel that "oil is infinite."
The supply side of oil is getting ravaged as much or more than the demand side. What will make the next oil spike even more acute is the credit crisis that has enveloped the world and is causing big oil projects to be mothballed left and right. The Canadian oil sands, once touted as having "more oil than Saudi Arabia" and which currently account for 2 MBPD of U.S. imports, have been the hardest hit by the credit crisis
and collapsing oil prices. Having a highly energy intensive extraction process, Canadian oil sands are not economically feasible when the price of a barrel sinks below $80 per barrel. As Qatar's oil minister recently warned, oil prices below $70 a barrel will cause a new supply crisis. "Under this scenario, future demand will face a shortage and there will not be enough investment to cope with demand increases." He is correct. We are setting ourselves up for major future supply constraints. The general public doesn't understand this and most are not aware of the seeds being sown. Try explaining to the average person that Big Oil is not gouging them at the pumps.
Exacerbating the situation for America in particular is that this energy crisis is building at a time when our national debt load is ballooning out of control. Unlike in the 1930's, the U.S. is no longer a creditor nation nor energy independent. It seems inevitable to me that the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency will be replaced by a basket of commodites or other currencies.