Stupid People say Stupid Things!

It is constantly amazing to me that “educated” people can be so stupid.  On a recent news items they were interviewing people about why the price of oil is so high.  A common statement is “Those big oil companies are doing it on purpose”.  Damn that has been around for 30 years.  Well maybe they are, but the inference was that the Exxon’s, Chevrons, BP’s, etc. were all to blame for the run up in prices.   The last time it happened about the time the slide below was made (2008) it was both the big oil companies and traders some where that did it.  Some simple facts about oil production – Consumption:

World OIL Production from EIA vs..  World Oil Consumption from EIA vs. Excess Production %  vs. World Crude Oil Distillation Capacity
84,595.136  =                        2005                = 84,091.213                          =0.59                         = 82,795
84,660.617  =                        2006                = 85,165.089                          =-0.59 = 85,345
84,543.111  =                        2007                = 85,798.584                          =-1.49 = 85,355
85,507.360  =                        2008                = 85,255.339                          =-0.29 = 85,460
84,388.895  =                        2009                = 84,029.021                          =0.43                         = 85,900

One would have to think that at the price of oil for the past 6 years that the “BIG OIL” interests would be producing more to make more, I mean were talking billions of dollars here for a little increase.  So why have they not bumped it up? Why is the price still high after 6 years and 2 years of total economic disarray?  With the prices staying high and the people of the largest consumer nations cutting back, why is there still so little surplus?   Just maybe we have reached some point of “Equilibrium”.  Think about it.

This is the listing of the largest producers of oil by reserves – I am not sure these are “proven” or “potential”.  There seems to be a lot of difference in that – like “your potential life-time income might be 7.3 billion dollars but will you actually make that?  That depends on a lot of things going really well for you and the percentage chance of that is ??? Slim and NONE.

From the same article I got the above graphic this statement comes in the first few paragraphs “Collectively, multinational oil companies produce just 10% of the world’s oil and gas reserves. State-owned companies now control more than 75% of all crude oil production.”   State owned in like Mexico, Venezuela, Libya, Algeria, Saudi, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Russia, etc.   Do you see any problem with depending on the state run companies?  How well does our own government run things – like “healthcare”?   Maybe we should all worry a little more and do a little more to conserve, reduce and control by letting our politicians know their benefits are about to be cut.   At least we need to educate our selves a bit more about the problem.  – WD0AJG