THE CURRENT HIGH OIL PRICES REFLECT INFRASTRUCTURE SHORTAGES, NOT OIL SHORTAGES


This article says that the current low supply of petroleum products and resultant high prices is not a political problem in the main oil-supplying countries but the result of a failure to drill new wells and build new refineries -- two things that have been greatly held up by Greenie histrionics. Excerpts:

This time the Saudis have not been able to come up with the oil. They claimed last week to have 1.3 million more barrels a day of available production, but there is widespread doubt they can produce that much now, or even after two new fields go on line later this year. Why not? The international energy business has been starved of major capital investment for two decades, since the price swoon of the early 1980s scared oil companies.....

Most oil market commentary still makes it sound as if high prices are a passing phenomenon. Each spike is attributed to the threat of a loss of Iraqi exports, or of Saudi instability, or of Yukos' problems in Russia, even though what is happening there seems unlikely to affect oil production, just to change who profits from it....

The problem is not a lack of oil in the world. The problem is getting the oil to refineries and then to market. The large, undeveloped resources are in West Africa, around the Caspian Sea and in Siberia, two of which have issues of political stability and the third with severe weather.....

It does not make much difference whether oil is pumped out of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge because a shortage of oil is not the biggest problem. "The real problem is the shortage of infrastructure to obtain and deliver the commodity," Currie said. "That seemed to go completely unnoticed until the last six months." Neither Europe nor the United States shows any indication of willingness to build new refineries.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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