Interesting information.

I'm going to immediately appologise if you'd rather not read something information, but definately having to do with recent events and "scandals" in our country with ripples around the world. Of course I'm talking about the action in Iraq and the oppositions labels for the motives that we went there. So if you'd rather not be informed, don't read on. Those of you that personally know me are aware that I'm going to post all of the information as I found it. And then put my key points in there. I just thought it was interesting because of the things that I didn't know about our oil imports that we're misinformed about all of the time.

First of all, let me post the link:

http://www.bondtalk.com/global.cfm?S=marcom&SS=market_commentaries&ID=3290

Now let me bring out some of the key points if you didn't feel like actually going to the website for yourself:

"2. How much of the 19.5 million barrels that the U.S. consumes daily is imported? The U.S. imported an average of 11.2 million barrels per day in 2002.

3. Where does the U.S. get is imported oil? The top individual suppliers of oil to the U.S. in 2002 were Canada (1.9 MMBD); Saudi Arabia (1.5 MMBD); Mexico (1.5 MMBD); and Venezuela (1.4 MMBD)."

I thought that was particularly interesting. I think that most of us that know anything about anything about our imports know that we import a vastly superior quantity than we can make ourselves. But additionally, most of the oil that we pump goes into the reserve, as I have it right now.

But I was very much shocked that our #1 oil buddy in 2002 was Canada. Holy fark. Do you realise what that means? Well obviously they are under our control then, in our back pocket. Silly. No. No one has ever had the balls to say that the Canadians are in our back pocket except for us. All the jokes about the 51st state and all... But seriously. They beat the hell out of the Saudis by 400k in barrels of oil PER DAY. They definately should have been invaded first.

Oh, yeah. Silly me... Mexico was tied with Saudi Arabia in the ammount that we imported... Kinda wierd. So technically there are two countries that we import more oil from then Saudi Arabia. Well, whatever, they're tied, which is enough for me to be more comfortable with the fact that we don't get the majority of our oil from the Saudis.

But there's more, really good, information coming up, too:

"4. How much crude oil does the U.S. import from OPEC? The U.S. imports roughly 4.04 million barrels per day from OPEC."

So basically a quarter of the oil that we import is from the nations of OPEC. That's hardly a majority. In fact, we get almost that much from Canada and Mexico. Their totals, just the two of them, coming in at 3.4 million barrels per day. Wierd. And here I was being told that we got most of our oil from OPEC and that most of that came from Saudi Arabia. Which, granted, seems to be more or less accurate. About an eighth of our oil comes from Saudi Arabia. The imported stuff, anyways.

Oh dude, I didn't even see this one. I came about this by a google seach, by the way. I was talking with one of my friends last night and she definately thinks that we went into Iraq for oil. There's actually a horrifically complicated conspiracy theory that involves the US setting up 9-11 so that we'd have an excuse to move into the middle east to seize the oil flows and cripple other nations in preparation for world domination. The really cool thing is that there's a whole website set up for that (not that she quoted, I actually stumbled upon it), maybe you've heard of it? www.infowars.com. They're all up in the police state thing and the "New World Order". So I finally got sick of it and decided to look up some facts of my own. And it almost seems plausible, until you look into it. But I've digressed way to much. This actually shows how our overall consumption has shifted AWAY from OPEC:

"5. As a share of total U.S. consumption, how much oil does the U.S. import from OPEC compared to the 1970s? In other words, how dependent is the U.S. on OPEC’s oil compared to the 1970s? In 1977, 33.6% of U.S. consumption of oil was imported from OPEC. Today, roughly 20% of U.S. oil needs are imported from OPEC."

And this is the information that got me here in the first place. Our 2002 oil imports from Iraq, but even cooler is that it talks about the guys who get to it first:

"7. How much crude oil does the U.S. import from Iraq? Many are surprised to hear that the U.S. imports any oil from Iraq. In 2002, the U.S. imported 440k barrels per day from Iraq. Iraqi oil is commonly sold initially to Russian firms, as well as to producers in France, China, and Malaysia. The oil is then resold to a variety of companies, including those in the U.S."

And even cooler then that, is that the first two (Russia and France) were totally against the war in Iraq. Raise your hand if you knew that. Now raise your hand if you knew WHY they had been opposed to the war. Silly. And of course the recent news about Kofi ACTUALLY KNOWING about his sons thing with fraudulently using Food for Oil. But that's a different topic.

I think that's enough to post about it for now. I need to run off and send this to my friend. See what she says about it. And a few other things. Like seeing if there's any other way to valididate the information. Yeah, as much as I use the internet for sources, I at least make sure that not only are there multiple ones, but that even a few of them could stand up to a basic credibility check. For instance I'm going to run this through snopes and the CIA right quick. If it doesn't appear to check out, then I'll pull it.

Deal?

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Dang, an update to be had.

There's slightly different, and wholly MORE appealing numbers to be had.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

It actually has a table with the break down of barrels per day. The really cool thing is that it's updated. So it has some of last years, and this years information. So the next time you hear someone saying how we get most of our oil from someplace, you have these websites to back you up when you say "Au contraire mon frere."

*deep sigh*

Oh yeah, that felt good.