Amvet

U.S. Oil Imports at Risk

You miss a couple of important points. (1)When we supported the military coup against Chavez and painted it as democratic when we thought that it was successful, we shot ourselves in the foot. (2) We are still punishing the Cuban people for revolting against US control. Most Latinos find this brutal bullying of the small by the big loud mouth.

We continue to be popular with the rich far-right thugs in Latin America, but among the majority our past behavior is coming home to haunt us.

Regarding oil prices, there is evidence that global crude production peaked in 2005. As that seeps into the media, the oil futures funds will push the price higher.

Pressing the Saudis to increase production is dumb. During my 5 years in Saudi Arabia, the complaint that I heard most was "Saudi Arabia overproduces our oil and sells it cheap to help the Americans stay rich and the American Government keeps the family in power".

Oil: What Goes Down Must Go Up?

US Government data says that demand fell 50K bpd in 2008 and predicts an additional fall of 450K bpd in 2009. With a base of 85 million bpd, this decrease is trivial. With a decline rate on producing field production of 5% per year, over 4 million bpd of new production is needed to stay even.

Don´t forget that oil prices are set by speculators and not by oil users, which is a totally stupid system (unless you are a speculator!!).