Is there really a shortage of oil?
This article tries to explain the shortage of crude oil. OPEC explains the barrels of crude oil produced daily and the cost. President Bush is not accepting responsibility for the rise in gas prices. After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the war initially began, President Bush was adamant about the United States being involved in the production of oil. Since there has been little involvement by the U.S., we have seen the gas prices rise. Other countries are using more oil such as China and India due to their population growth, which of course has caused the surplus that the U.S. depends on to decrease. In my opinion, U.S. has a greater demand for the oil therefore; the U.S. is at mercy to OPEC. Can more people be hired to help produce more oil that is needed? Maybe the U.S. should focus on producing our own oil out of Alaska and Texas to entice competition with the Middle East. For example, in the month of February 2005, Alaska produced 44.4 billion cubic feet of oil. Is there not a way to tap into our own natural resources more effectively and use our resources before traveling to foreign countries to buy theirs? If we were not at war would the oil prices be this high? Gouging oil prices is only going to cause further decline in the American economy.
4 Comments:
At 11:26 AM, skeeter said…
From things that I've read, I agree that President Bush should not take the blame for the rise in prices of gasoline. The people that the finger should be pointing at are the big wheels on Wall Street. They can change the price of any gallon of gas by simply changing the price of stocks, but that is another story. I believe that we should tap into own resources instead of going abroad. Alaska has enough resources that the U.S. could develop gasoline for the next 250 years without having to buy it from overseas. The main draw back from getting oil from Alaska is the U.S. will have to cut down forest and fringe on the environment. That will make alot of pro environmentalist very unhappy. Yes, I agree, cuting down and removing forest land is kind of bad because of the wildlife that will be destroyed, but Americans can take those animals and plants and transport them else where in the country. So, to answer your questions in the blog about whether we should use our own resouces from within the U.S., I think that we should. I
At 8:52 PM, rose said…
I don't know if there is a shortage of oil or not. But after reading the OPEC article if there is not a shortage now, and the world demand for crude oil kepts growing in time there will be. According to the article there is only one country (Saudi Arabia)in the world that has not used up it surplus production. Oil is not a resource that can be made over night it takes years to make oil.
At 2:09 PM, Waltham said…
To begin with, President Bush does not accept responsibility for anything. He is a politician that passes responsibility on to others by answering questions with questions. Our country gains an advantage by purchasing goods from countries that specialize in that porduction. Everyone is at the mercy of OPEC, they are a cartel that meet to maximize profits amoung their members. Oil is not crack because there can be a cheaper substitute available if the price of oil meets or exceeds the substitute lets go with the alternative. So to propose a theory, instead of extorting the land of the United States for oil why dont we go to war with the Middle East for theirs? Or is controll what the original war rally was for? When the U.S. was searching for the weapon of mass destruction, we found it. Oil and the posession of.
At 11:23 PM, prmars said…
I also agree that the President is not to blame for a rise in fuel prices. There are a number of factors that contribute to high energy prices, such as inadequate refinery capacity and dramatically increased consumption of petroleum products in China and India over the past few years. Unfortunately, with no new refineries build in the US since 1976 and newer EPA restriction driving up the cost of construction of new ones, we're unlikely to see a significant drop in fuel prices any time soon. Beyond the inability to refine enough fuel, crude prices are abnormally high. OPEC is nearly at the limits of their production capacity and Russia is exporting less petroleum due to the government seizure of YUKOS last Winter. This leaves the Alaskan tundra and deep-sea drilling as potential sources of oil in the future.
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