Oil-Political

Dr. Green

Utilitarianism

• What are the alternatives?

• What are the consequences?– Economic– Political

• Des the oil system create the greatest good for the greatest number?

Trends

• demand is growing 89% faster than supply

• demand is now outstripping supply

The Problem

• The world's oil consumption is rising every year at a rate of 2 million barrels a day.

• Oil production is falling every year at a rate of 4 million barrels a day.

• That's 6 million extra barrels a day that need to be discovered and developed every year just to keep pace with demand.

Oil

• There are political problems in oil production on top of the economic ones

Iran

• The usual estimate of Iran's petroleum reserves is 132.5 billion barrels.

• That's the second highest in the Middle East, after Saudi Arabia.

• Dr. Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari who worked for 35 years in Iran's oil industry says that Iran has only somewhere between 35-45 billion barrels

• Iran's real oil reserves might be only one-third the amount frequently quoted in the media

Iran

• Iran signed a deal with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1975 called National Security Decision Memorandum 292 spelling out all the details of how U.S companies would sell Iran vital equipment to get its nuclear energy program up and running.

• Iran needs nuclear energy to keep its economy going because Iran's oil reserves are running out.

Oil War

• Is a major war with Iran inevitable?

• Consequences– A vital oil route cut off– 40% of the world's oil exports passes the

Strait of Hormuz– Riots threatening U.S. naval facilities

Saudi Arabia

• The world's largest oil field, Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, might be producing less than 60% of what the Saudi government claims

Saudi Arabia

• Ninety percent of all the oil Saudi Arabia's ever pumped out of the ground has come from just seven giant oil fields.

• And after five decades, all of them are starting to wear out.

• At Ghawar, the amount of water mixed in with the oil is now 30%.

• Even though they're pumping out more (for the moment), the Saudis need the oil for themselves and, hence, are exporting less.

Saudi Arabia

• Saudi citizens are already giving millions of dollars to supply weapons to Iraq's Sunni rebel

• The people who carry out most of the attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq right now are funded by the Saudis.

Russia

• Russia generates 19% of the world's oil and gas supply making Russia number one, surpassing Saudi Arabia's 18%.

• Russian fields overall are declining between 5-10% a year

• Putin’s priority is to meet domestic needs so he has nationalized the oil companies and excluded foreign investors

• Eight years ago, Russia had next to nothing in cash reserves. Today it has $250 billion.

Georgia

Russia

• Georgia wants to enter NATO

• Major pipelines bypass Russia and go through Georgia

• Putin des not want Georgia to enter NATO

• Europe would be reluctant to prevent Russian intervention since it could shut off their oil and gas

Mexico

• Cantarell oil field in the Gulf of Mexico - the world's second largest was generating 2.1 million barrels per day in the spring of 2006.

• By summer, that had fallen to 1.74 million barrels.

• The Mexican government forecasts a fall to as little as 520,000 barrels per day by 2008.

Mexico

• Political instability– Steelworker riots– Rebellion in Oaxaca – A wave of bomb attacks in Mexico City in

early November– Drug lords competing for turf– An endlessly disputed election

Mexico

• Oil accounts for 40% of the Mexican government's revenues

• As the oil money dries up, there will be less money for social welfare programs

• A possible flood of illegal immigrants into the U.S.– Immigrants on one side, the Minutemen on the

other, and the Border Patrol trying to keep the peace

Elsewhere in the World

• Great Britain's resources in the North Sea are depleting so quickly that Britain is once again a net oil importer.

• Norway's production of North Sea oil has fallen by more than 50% in the last 10 years...2.2 million barrels per day then, just over 1 million barrels per day now

• Indonesia (an OPEC member) is growing so quickly it's become a net oil importer

Elsewhere in the World

• Venezuela's can't even produce enough to meet the quota allowed by OPEC

• Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo is helpless to stop routine attacks by gunmen on his country's oil facilities

• Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki routinely sends out his oil minister to tell the media his country is now producing more oil than it was before the 2003 invasion. – Iraq has no oil meters that could verify the claims. – The rebels still routinely sabotage pipelines.

Elsewhere in the World

• Canadian oil sands are not going to pull us out of trouble. – Extracting the oil from those sands is costly and

time-consuming. – It requires huge amounts of water and natural

gas.