T. Boone Pickens talks foreign oil, debt

Legendary oil baron, financier and philanthropist T. Boone Pickens held court over lunch Wednesday at ACG InterGrowth 2009, expressing his concerns over foreign oil and U.S. debt levels, among other things.

In a lively interchange with Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman, Pickens predicted higher energy prices in the short term (“get ready, ’cause you’re gonna have ‘em”), a coming government-sponsored windfall (pun intended) for alternative energy (“Obama has gone for wind, solar and the 21st-century grid. That’s in the stimulus package”) and the necessity to harness natural gas (“the only resource that moves an 18-wheeler in this country”). But his most pointed comments were about the perils of oil imports.

The U.S. currently imports 68% of its daily oil needs — an all-time high. “This is more than half the trade deficit [and] has far-reaching tentacles and influence over what goes on in this country, where it has not been exposed or even explained to anybody,” said Pickens.

The U.S. consumes 21 million barrels of oil per day, or roughly a quarter of the world’s production (85 million barrels). Thirteen million of the 21 million barrels come via imports. From a geopolitical perspective alone, this creates some unpleasant realities.

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