Exxon Mobile pwns us. Courtesy of decades of spineless politicians.

They're selling to other countries?

is this before or after the oil is refined?

That's cool to know.
I'll be dropping this factbomb all weekend during the several End of Summer patio parties I'll be attending.

Thanks!!!

VietVet8666 @ 3:

The jig IS up.

FWIW, my view is every American should be making an exit plan.

To where? It won't matter. Nobody is going to have oil...and without oil, life will look very, very different. Not just here--worldwide.

Welcome to the Milton Friedman/Ronny Raygun/Simian warmonger world of neo-conservatism, deregulation and globalism. Somebody voted for the 2 of the 3 and Milton had tenure at the University of Chicago. Go figure -- and if your're one of those voters, stop mewing and whining. You got what you voted for.

[Deleted. Off topic. Site Monitor]

How POW can POW you POW criticize POW McCain POW on POW about POW oil POW company POW donations? He was a POW!!!!!!!!

[You're off topic, in moderation, and on the verge of getting banned. Site Monitor]

Better yet, do you know where most of these exports are going?

Our "arch enemy" Russia!

PEACE

Senate Republicans block oil windfall profits tax

So why dont the Democrats make hay of this? Something smells bad here, and it smells like Democratic complicity.

Hey odanny,

Watch out man, the smell of Democratic complicity will knock you and me out. Every time you want to curse GWB, just give a shout out to Nancy Pelosi for making it all possible.

ScrewBush @ 22:

Hey odanny,

Watch out man, the smell of Democratic complicity will knock you and me out. Every time you want to curse GWB, just give a shout out to Nancy Pelosi for making it all possible.

I think Evan Bahy is about the worst in this regard.

Ummm...

Rep. Markey, a chunk of that 1.8 million barrels of going to North Korea, as the centerpiece of the nuclear agreement. It is what Clinton gave in order to get their nukes sealed, what Bush/Cheney cut off that triggered NK to unseal their nuke program, and what was given to shut it down again. Japan gets the next largest share, India and Viet Nam, and the Philippines get some, as well as Guam. NAFTA also has some extremely odd demands regarding movement of oil between the US Canada and Mexico. We must buy X amount of Canadian oil, provide Mexico with Y amount of oil, and provide BOTH with Z amount every year.

I think that Rep. Markey is over-simplifying things a bit much, and neglecting some very important agreements to score easy points amongst the chronically stupid.

I'm truly sorry to speak against one of our own on this point, but I wonder to who's coat tails he's trying to attach himself, here. A coupla hundred thousand barrels per day might be shaved, and saved, I suppose, but much of those production exports are "vital to National Security and World Stability," and obligated by necessity. The US consumes over 13 million barrels per day. I think that there is a matter of scale to be considered here.

--mf

How many barrels per ton?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR200709...

EIA NK background:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/North_Korea/Profile.html

They consume 25K barrels per day. 9 million barrels per year.

Neo-classical secular humanist @ 13:

RobertD @ 8:

VietVet8666 @ 3:

The jig IS up.

FWIW, my view is every American should be making an exit plan.

To where? It won't matter. Nobody is going to have oil...

There's more oil in the Alberta tarsands than there is in the entire Middle East. However, it's pricey to extract and to refine. The FTAA agreement among Canada, the US and Mexico is a no-brainer for the failed elites/aristocrats in all 3 countries to get this energy into the mainstream but it will take quite a while and a lot of "trickle down" bullshit propoganda.

There is a lot of oil in the Alberta tar sands, but your mention of it being pricey to extract and refine is just the point. Once you're past "peak" oil, the half that hasn't been extracted is expensive and difficult to get, poorer in quality, and/or geopolitically more precarious. If I read Kunstler correctly--and he's taking his information from a number of scientists well-versed in geology and petroleum recovery--even if all of the world's remaining oil were recovered (and it never will be), this planet has about 37 years of oil left to extract. That's at the current rate of consumption, which we all know is only going to go up, and it doesn't factor in population growth, much of which is based on, you guessed it, the availability of cheap oil to help people lead "better, more civilized lives."

Now, McCain and others like him may have a point that there are unknown supplies waiting to be discovered, but they won't be huge--oil doesn't just "occur" any old place (amazingly, there are people who think it does--and that it can simply "regenerate" itself, too--ignoring the fact that petroleum came into being over many millions of years under geologically perfect conditions). If these places exist, you can bet that other countries--namely Russia--have their eye on them, too. The Arctic is one such region. But global production is on the decline. Period.

Kunstler posits that when world leaders face up to the fact that oil is in a global decline, it will usher in a prolonged period of instability and "weird behavior" that will topple governments internally, start wars externally, and lead to general unpredictable, irrational behavior--like wide price swings that don't seem to be based on changes in supply or demand. Sound familiar?

This is like beating a dead horse, but it has to be done.

Meanwhile, on the cusp of the DNC, gas in Los Angeles just dropped to $3.94/gallon. That's almost $1 less than a couple months ago. Coinkydink? Obama's Alternative Energy platform "isn't such a great thing" because the issue has suddenly become less important. Call me paranoid, but....

Or do you think they're gearing up for Labor Day Weekend. Prepping everyone to say, "Wow! We can take that road trip now!" While they say, "Suckers! Go on, fill your tanks like there's no tomorrow and fill our pockets some more! Bwahahaha!"

I predict more record profits coming soon.

C'mon guys. Think a bit. Western Canada exports oil to the US. The US also exports oil to Eastern Canada because there are not sufficient pipelines going fully west-east in Canada. So yes the US exports oil to Canada, but not nearly as much as it imports from Canada. Also under Nafta the US can not restrict exports to Canada or Mexico. This is a MASSIVE non-issue.

Monkeyfister @ 26:

Ummm...

Rep. Markey, a chunk of that 1.8 million barrels of going to North Korea, as the centerpiece of the nuclear agreement. It is what Clinton gave in order to get their nukes sealed, what Bush/Cheney cut off that triggered NK to unseal their nuke program, and what was given to shut it down again. Japan gets the next largest share, India and Viet Nam, and the Philippines get some, as well as Guam. NAFTA also has some extremely odd demands regarding movement of oil between the US Canada and Mexico. We must buy X amount of Canadian oil, provide Mexico with Y amount of oil, and provide BOTH with Z amount every year.

I think that Rep. Markey is over-simplifying things a bit much, and neglecting some very important agreements to score easy points amongst the chronically stupid.

I'm truly sorry to speak against one of our own on this point, but I wonder to who's coat tails he's trying to attach himself, here. A coupla hundred thousand barrels per day might be shaved, and saved, I suppose, but much of those production exports are "vital to National Security and World Stability," and obligated by necessity. The US consumes over 13 million barrels per day. I think that there is a matter of scale to be considered here.

--mf

How many barrels per ton?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR200709...

EIA NK background:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/North_Korea/Profile.html

They consume 25K barrels per day. 9 million barrels per year.

Fine! We honor our past agreements, But any new oil deposits found are not to be sold on the international market... they stay here! It's Americas oil after all... not Exxon's!

I propose the radical notion of leaving the oil in the ground where it is. Are we willing to doom our children and grand children who will *need* that oil so that we can keep the SUVs a few more years?

Tuesday's vote was 51 to 43, short of the 60 Democrats needed to break a filibuster. Six Republicans and nearly all Democrats supported moving the bill to the floor of the Senate. GOP Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Gordon Smith of Oregon, and John Warner of Virginia broke with their caucus to vote for the bill. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana was the lone Democrat to oppose it.

"In an election year with an absolutely infuriated public, maybe we can get enough votes to override [a presidential veto]," says Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan.

Oh Good Christ--

Folks-- the Alberta Tar Sands are a gigantic boondoggle, and enormous disaster area already.

http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=2577

Thousands and thousands of migratory birds are dying by simply landing in the tarry, sludgy waste ponds, that will soon cover as much land as Lake Ontario. In addition, the land rape and mining will cover an area the size of Florida (plus that Lake Ontario of deadly waste at the headwaters of much of Central Northern North America's fresh water source). Sweet!

Oh, inre: my pie division upthread, I was backwards in order NAFTA eats up more than NK and Japan. Other export points and numbers are surprising. 2007 figures:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec5_15.pdf

It's time to make other arrangements is what I am trying to say.

We're totally fraking, and forcing the generations of 100 years from now to deal with the fallout mess of our excess. (Here-- hold this bag, my dear, dear great-great-great grandchild... a man with a red flower will pick it up from you. Don't worry.)

It's better to start making adjustments now.

It starts on the You level, and works up to the Local level, and on from there.

--mf

You know what really isn't funny, I just bought a full size 3/4 ton van. :( LOL): I had no choice, kinda. 2 days and up to 60 bucks already, hardly went anywhere, has got to be 12 mpg. I aprove this message.

Dear Stupid People, listen up - here are some facts and edumication for you:

This has been discussed ad nauseum in the energy community for quite some time. It is a property called The Export Land Model. In a nutshell: an oil exporting country will stop exporting oil when the country's needs for oil exceed its abilities to produce oil. These are fake numbers, for illustration. Let's say you're the country of Petrolistan. And you pull 1 million barrels a day out of the ground. This is no big deal, because you only use 100,000 a day. Great. Your country is poor, so you can sell the rest and make money. Now, because you are a poor country and not owned lock stock and barrel by multinationals, your oil is nationalised (like it should be).

So, the nation of Petrolistan rakes HUGE sums of money into its national coffers. Half of which gets siphoned off by the ruling elite, but te other half go into developing the nation, and, with the glories of compounding interest from national investments of the money in both economic instruments and the infrastructure of Petrolistan itself (food, medicine, housing, etc.) the population explodes and Petrolistan begins to develop.

Soon, its oil needs go up to 500,000 barrels a day. Then a million, and suddenly: Petrolistan is a net energy importer...

Now MOST Export Lands, like Petrolistan, nationalised their oil industry decades ago. However, the USA is run by a looser confederacy of gangsters than most countries, and so the USA never nationalised its oil industry. As a consequence, the gangsters who run the oil industry are not beholden to the USA for their production, and will cheerfully sell it to who ever has the money.

And that is why the USA, even though its oil production peaked in 1970, as predicted by M King Hubbert in 1956, is still exporting oil, and violating the structure of the export land model.

However, it is the exception that proves the rule, as one of its largest suppliers, Mexico, DID nationalise its production in 1938. Its largest field, Cantarell, is in double digit depletion, and the nation of Mexico is not expected to export ANY fossil fuels to the USA after 2014, and possibly as soon as 2010. This will, in essence, destroy the American economy.

Right now, the USA's other big supplier, Canada, is locked into a completely retarded deal via NAFTA. Canada also has not nationalised its resource base, as it is a direct colony of the USA, and slavishly follows far too many American directives. Should Canada finally get off its ass and revoke the proportionality clause, and look after its own best interests, then the USA will basically be left to shiver in the dark, a fate it and its obese and ignorant citizenry, sorry, **"taxpayers"** so richly deserves.

You people are screwed. Deeply deeply screwed. The 20teens are going to make the great depression look like a walk in the park, because the USA is insolvent and can't afford to put down floorboards under its economy like the New Deal. With a dramatically reduced energy diet, and a populace too fat and dull witted to think its way through the simplest planning exercise, the American Empire will unravel in a manner similar to the Soviet Empire, but due to the squandering of resources, won't have the ability, skillsets, or education to bounce back. The USA will need engineers, but all it will have are nail salons, options traders, advertisers, and psychologists - basically, useless people.

don't like it? Tough. Should have thought about that back when you made fun of Jimmy Carter's little remarks about putting on a sweater and turning down the thermostat...

There’s more oil in the Alberta tarsands than there is in the entire Middle East. However, it’s pricey to extract and to refine. The FTAA agreement among Canada, the US and Mexico is a no-brainer for the failed elites/aristocrats in all 3 countries to get this energy into the mainstream but it will take quite a while and a lot of “trickle down” bullshit propoganda.

The tar sands are BS. They require HUGE amounts of natural gas to heat the tar up and vaster amounts of water to heat th tar in and process it into something like oil than is available. Fact: Natural Gas production has been in decline for years. In Canada, its energy return on energy invested (EROEI) is projected to drop below 1:1 by 2014. At that point there will be no point in mining natgas, and at that point, the tar sands simply stop producing oil. Game over.

So, forget about the tar sands. Face it: THERE IS NO ENERGY FAERIE. You're screwed. Make plans to lead a very different lifestyle, or have your plans made for you by Geology, and I can assure you that the planet won't really have your personal best interests at heart when it does what it does.

All this talk about oil got me thinking of "There Will Be Blood", what a fantastic movie.

The only way they will drill in the U.S. is if:

1) The dollar gets replaced (Amero anyone?)
2) The dollar gets a new backing (currently oil, gold/silver before that)

someguy @ 4:

They're selling to other countries?

is this before or after the oil is refined?

After, which is much worse for us but better for oil company profits since profits are high and likely to stay that way. Refining capacity is about maxed, oil inventories are low and foreign markets are lucrative, especially for less refined hence cheaper to produce dirtier gas that sells for higher prices abroad than more highly refined gas sells here.

You buy low and sell high. That's business.