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Page added on January 22, 2014
Oil Security 2025 report – US remains vulnerable
The inaugural work of the Commission on Energy and Geopolitics, “Oil Security 2025: U.S. National Security Policy in an Era of Domestic Oil Abundance,” explores the potential for U.S. oil production to impact American foreign policy and national security in the coming decade and presents a series of recommendations designed to safeguard and advance U.S. interests.
Link to full report (PDF) Released January 15, 2014
Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
US still vulnerable to oil shocks, say generals
Ed Crooks, Financial Times
The US remains vulnerable to oil price shocks caused by disruptions in the Middle East and other producing regions in spite of the North American shale boom, a commission of former generals and senior officials has warned.
(15 January 2014)
How the oil boom could change U.S. foreign policy
Brad Blumer, WonkBlog, Washington post
The United States is suddenly awash in crude oil. From 2008 to 2013, domestic oil production rose by 2.5 million barrels per day — the biggest five-year increase in the country’s history. Last year, U.S. produced more oil than it imported for the first time since 1995.
So what does that mean for the rest of the world? Or for U.S. foreign policy? Well, for starters, it probably doesn’t mean that Americans can now safely ignore the Middle East. The U.S. economy is still heavily reliant on oil, and prices are still largely swayed by what goes on in the global markets. Disruptions in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Iraq still have a big impact. That’s one conclusion of a major new report by a commission of former generals and senior officials, backed by Securing America’s Energy Future (SAFE).
“The oil boom has sparked a lot of loose talk about how we can now ignore what goes on in the Middle East,” said Adm. Dennis Blair, a former director of National Intelligence who led the commission, in an interview Tuesday. “But that’s just not true.”
Blair pointed out that the oil boom has already had some impact on U.S. foreign policy. For example, increased North American oil production likely allowed the United States and Europe to impose stricter sanctions on Iran without worrying as much about resulting price spikes. There are also early, tentative signs that China could become more cooperative on Middle East issues now that the fast-growing nation has displaced the United States as the biggest oil importer from the region.
But what’s arguably more telling is how much hasn’t changed. Even with the boom, the United States is still quite vulnerable to oil shocks…
(16 January 2014)
Report: Energy boom won’t end US ties to global oil politics
Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Fuelfix
National security leaders are warning that, even as ever more crude flows from American fields, the U.S. still will be tethered to the global politics of oil and involved in unstable regions that supply it.
In a report issued Wednesday, a group of former military brass, presidential advisers, ambassadors and politicians insist that it’s an illusion that surging U.S. oil production could unshackle the nation’s foreign policy decisions from concerns about safeguarding worldwide crude supplies.
“This is an antidote to those who just glibly say more oil production means we’re free of foreign entanglements,” said Adm. Dennis Blair, the former director of national intelligence, and co-chairman of the Commission on Energy and Geopolitics that produced the 108-page analysis.
“We Americans like to think we can produce our way and work our way out of something,” Blair said in an interview with FuelFix. “Unfortunately, the fact that we are now drilling as much oil as we are is not going to, in and of itself, keep America out of the vulnerable situation and the series of entanglements in places around the world that we have been in the past.”…
(15 January 2014)
19 Comments on "Oil Security 2025 report – US remains vulnerable"
robertinget on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 2:27 pm
At exactly 10:30 Eastern our Energy Dept will post a storage but more importantly a Consumption Report for last week.
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/
I often read the last paragraph first, few others bother or seem to care that consumption has been slowly, but surely
going higher.
Obviously, I’ve not seen today’s report.
If the last SEVEN weeks of declining inventories follows on today will mark
the eighth week of lower inventories.
Note PROPANE stocks.Propane is a refinery by product. Because of colder than expected weather P is in exceptionally short supply. With refineries working at around 90% one wonders why? Tomorrow’s gas report will also show a record (for date) draw. With heavy use expected this week in the NE
expect another big draw one week from Thursday.
Lastly, on TOPIC, note how much oil and finished product we IMPORTED last week alone.
Ghung on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 2:33 pm
“…an Era of Domestic Oil Abundance…”
How many years does it take to make an ‘era’? Three? Five?
ulenspiegel on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 2:51 pm
Three years are a very long time for a mayfly. 🙂
danlxyz on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 2:56 pm
Robert –
Notice
The Weekly Petroleum Status Report will be released on Thursday,
January 23, 2014 at 11:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. (Eastern Time) due to the closure of the Federal Government on Monday, January 20.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 3:45 pm
If “United States is suddenly awash in crude oil”, as a result of “the shale oil boom”, it won’t be for long. That “shale oil boom” will burn itself out in the very near future, and in the long view of things, appear as only a small blip on the graph — right before the steeply declining forever-downward plunge.
ghung on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 3:51 pm
For comparison, last week:
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending January 10, 2014-
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.7 million barrels per day during the week ending January 10, 2014, 403 thousand barrels per day lower than the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 90.0% of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging over 8.3 million barrels per day.
Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging 4.7 million barrels per day.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.9 million barrels per day last week, down
by 1.1 million barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 7.4 million barrels per day, 5.3% below the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 405 thousand barrels per day.
Distillate fuel imports averaged 208 thousand barrels per day last week….
rockman on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 5:39 pm
NR – That’s the great benefit of using phrases like “awash with oil”. They have no intention other than evoking an emotional response. Consider what they are saying on a strictly grammatical basis: Awash means – Overflowing with or as if with water. So they are saying the US is overflowing with oil. I haven’t noticed the US overflowing with oil since the Macondo blowout.
So what we have to deal with is the constant use by the MSM and others are meaningless terms that we can’t address on a factual basis. One can’t prove such statements are wrong because there’s no clear meaning of exactly what they are saying. As they say: it’s in the eye (or ear in this case) of the beholder. Which is the basis of every well planned propaganda IMHO.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 6:40 pm
rockman — I think you’re starting to get the hang of the “PR tricks of the trade”!! Not that you didn’t already have a complete understanding…:-) Indeed, and yesterday we learned from another (Bloomberg?) article that we are on “the verge” of overtaking Russia and Saudi Arabia in oil production — not that we will ever do it, but you know, we ARE on “the verge”. Just like I’m “on the verge” of winning the Powerball lottery — not that I’ll ever do it. Yes, the MSM has an army of busy little bodies cranking out the emotional response “feel good” mumbo-jumbo 24/7/365 — the lemming masses need constant soothing, especially with all the “vultures of reality” circling overhead and the “wolves of inconvenient facts” closing in on the ground. — Haven’t been “awash” in oil since the Macondo blowout. Seriously, THAT is funny.
DC on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 7:28 pm
LoL! amerikas foreign policy, such as it is, has *always* been about oil(and other natural resources).There is very little amerika does on the world stage that cant be traced back to oil in some way or another. Anyone that reads the term ‘safeguard amerikas interests’ should be very worried-if you have something amerika wants.
The simple fact is, amerika is far beyond the point of even remotely living within its means. And by this, I mean, the ability to provide for its citizens largely on the resources within its own territory. Put another way, amerikas high-maintenance lifestyles are utterly dependent on taking resources(oil) from the people of the world, often at gunpoint, or worse, lawyer-point, and shipping them to the ‘homeland’. Whether the nations in question are ‘stable’ or even ‘like’ amerika is irrelevant’.
The term roughly translates to, “amerika will use military force and coercive economic warfare to obtain what it wants from whoever wants”. Or failing that, it will use those same powers to create maximum instability and foster regime change until it can.
Again, US commenters seem strangely obsessed with the notion that oil is being supplied to them by ‘unstable’ countries. Never crosses their minds it was largely the US and its select allies that made them that way. Never made clear is just who is supposed to be supplying all that ‘unstable oil’ they worry about so much. The US has a lock on world oil trade though its petro-dollar recycling hegemony. It doesnt matter if the producers(oil) hates the US with a passion. If your selling oil, you have to deal with the US, and inadvertently supporting continued US aggression while doing it.
Iraq for example, stopped selling oil in US dollars-now THAT was instability, at least in washingtons eyes. The ‘fix’ for this intolerable challenge to US hegemony? Promptly invaded and massively DE-stabilized(intentionally).
Northwest Resident on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 8:09 pm
DC, your fixation on and compulsive hatred of “amerika” is obvious to all. Your burning anger toward “ameriKa” is apparent, and I believe that causes you to have a distorted view of reality. I read all of your postings, but your postings read to me like the angry diatribes of a fanatical American hating jihadist — is THAT what you are?
I believe you live in Canada, but let me guess, you’re an immigrant from a Middle East country that has been victimized by American Oil companies, and you brought your hatred with you when you moved to Canada? Just a guess.
One thing you need to understand is that Oil Company Interests are not all American — there are many investors and controlling interests from different parts of the world which admittedly, have collectively been instrumental in deploying the American CIA and military to advance or protect their oil-industry-related interests.
FACT IS, “white European man” learned how to harness fossil fuel energy FIRST, and so the Europeans (and subsequently, their offspring — the “ameriKans”) became THE dominant force in the world and built the world economy to their specifications and influenced cultures around the world to their liking.
FACT IS, IF the Chinese, or the Japanese, or the camel-herding nomads of the African deserts had learned to harness fossil fuel energy first, then THEY would have grown mighty and powerful and wealthy, at the expense of the rest of the world. Human history would have been vastly different, but NOT necessarily any better, and perhaps far worse.
We ALL come from a past of dog-eat-dog foreign relations. The entire human history is thick with excessive violence, racism, murder, treachery — you name it. And now, YOU PRETEND like “ameriKans” are the sole guilty party — or at least you CONSTANTLY RAIL AND RANT against “ameriKans”, as if they are all pure evil and individually responsible for whatever severe abuse YOU have suffered that makes you so hateful and angry.
American government, and all world governments, have played any number of dirty tricks and implemented murderous policies to advance their interests. Since the discovery of fossil fuel as a valuable resource, naturally, the driving rationale behind world conflicts has been the procurement and preservation of profitable access to that fossil fuel.
It is all coming to an end. We’ll have to find something else to fight about. Most likely that fight will be with local individuals over food or access to water or suitable land for maintaining growing crops or raising livestock.
Let your hatred and anger go, DC. Try to understand that there are evil and bad people everywhere, not just in “ameriKa”. Don’t carry your anger and hatred with you all the way to your grave.
DC on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 8:35 pm
ROFL@NWR. I have never met a ‘jihadist’ and neither have you. Nor are either of us likely to ever to. Because they dont exist. The scary arab jihadist is as fake as the scary Russian commie that was out to nuke the world of yesteryear.Nor an going to fall for the scary Chinese boogeymen that are being lined up to (hopefully) replace the scary arab trope. I am sorry if pointing out that your empire steals the resources of the world and murders its people in the pursuit of corporate wealth and power offends you, really I am.
If the US really wants ‘security’ then I suggest you withdraw to your own ‘homeland’ and live off the resources within your own borders. Thats all.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 9:35 pm
DC — that was a pretty slippery denial. Are you denying that “jihadists” exist? If so, you further lower your credibility — they DO exist (think suicide bombers — or do you deny their existence too?), and despite your evasive answer I even more strongly suspect that you are exactly what I guessed you are.
Tell me even one empire, past present or future, that did not “steal the resources of the world and murder its people in the pursuit of … wealth and power”. JUST ONE.
And how do you come to the conclusion that I’m offended by that reality — it is YOU who so consistently appear to be offended, angry and bitter about it. Are you projecting your feelings onto me?
Nice try, DC. Keep ROFL. Fire off a bitter, angry, “jihadist” RANT AND RAVE from time to time, in between the laughs. For the sake of creativity, try to come up with an even more insulting and yet equally derisive name to call AmeriKans — one that truly satiates your burning hatred and bitterness toward all things American and that allows you at the same time to pretend that only AmeriKans are to blame for the world’s problems and your personal inner misery.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 1:17 am
DC on Wed, 22nd Jan 2014 7:28 pm
DC, get up to speed man. The days of America being this or that to hate or bash are over. It is all about the global elite 1% in the alliance with governments they have bought off. America is just another market of theirs. When you bash America you are playing into this groups hands. The 1% don’t want to be singled out. They like their anonymity and privacy. It is all about divide and conquer. There is no organized plan for this it is just the nature of concentration of power. We are past nation states and now into the quasi group of global High net worth individuals pulling the strings in a loose confederation of like minded individuals.
Makati1 on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 1:43 am
NR, America and the UK ARE behind most of the wars and troubles in the last 200+ years. America has ALWAYS been a dominating, killing, plundering country since the Pilgrims. We imported our empire building greed habit from Europe and built our easy lifestyle on the backs and with the blood of the 3rd world. If you don’t already know that, you need to think about it and ignore the ‘history’ you learned in school. Remember, the winner writes the history books.
And, I am one of those European warmonger lines. My family came to North America in 1734 from Germany via Austria. I do not hate the US, but I am sorry to see what it has become. I now live in the Philippines as most on here already know. I am preparing for the worst as that is what I see coming. Are you?
Northwest Resident on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 2:01 am
Hello Makati1. I do not deny that America has “ALWAYS been a dominating, killing, plundering country since the Pilgrims.” The entire history of America is written in the bloody conquests of people who justified their conquests with their “Christian” religion, their “manifest destiny” and their ugly racism. My point is, that if America (and their European partners) had not first discovered how to use fossil fuels and industry to establish supremacy over the other peoples of the world, then another nation/people eventually would have, and there is very little possibility that they would have done any differently than America and Europe ended up doing. We ALL derive from a history where conquest between nations was the norm, the taking of land and resources from other people was the standard way of doing business. Now here we are at the end of the line, looking at the damage and bloody murder that we have (collectively) have done, and seeing that the energy that enabled the bloody conquests will soon be gone. My issue with DC is that he constantly blames “amerika” for all the world’s ills, lumping all Americans in with that evil caricature of America that he regularly conjures up. Truth is, these days, the power is international as Davy points out, it is the greed and the drive for power and wealth of a few that lead us all to this sorry point. I don’t dispute DC’s characterization of the American empire — I just detest his insulting name calling and lumping all Americans into one big evil group, as if we are all individually responsible for whatever misery affects him or the world as he sees it.
On another note: I’ve been to the Philippines several times. My brother and I often discuss the possibility of trying to set ourselves up in some mountain area in the Philippines for when that ultimate collapse comes. But the logistics are complicated, and uncertain. My hat is off to you for being in a position to get set up there now, before TSHTF. I wish I could do the same, but can’t. So, I and those close to me prepare to make our stand here. And yes, we/I are most definitely preparing. Urgently. To not do so would be foolish, IMO.
Thanks for your comments. DC, please get over your insulting comments and hatred of “Amerika” — I am no more to blame for today’s problems or for the suffering of people at America’s hands than you are. But like “jihadists” who enjoy killing any or all Americans, I suspect you don’t get it. But try.
Makati1 on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 2:27 am
Maybe a few minutes to read this:
http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog2.php/2014/01/22/america-a-culture-of-war
Sums up my comments above.
Makati1 on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 2:32 am
Ah, but, NR, you and I ARE to blame. After all, the US is a Democracy and our leaders ARE chosen by us or we have the obligation to get rid of them if they do not represent us. So … obviously we agree with what they are doing and have done. Any other reason is a cop-out.
Don’t try to say that the rest of the world is like the Us. Most of it is not. The US is forcing countries to obey or be destroyed. There are a long list of destroyed countries in the US’ past. The US is the biggest terrorist organization in the world. It is time for it to go down and soon, I hope. I don’t see any other way to end this madness.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 23rd Jan 2014 2:45 am
Makati1, you’re not getting my point. What IF Japan had been the first to learn how to use fossil fuels and industry, rather than the Europeans? Do you think they would have been less murderous and domineering than Europeans and Americans ended up being? Given their history and behavior in WWII, I’m sure you must agree with me that lacking even the most basic of “Western morals”, they would have plundered and murdered to an even greater extent than America and Europe did (and are still doing). That’s the point. We all came from a violent past. Yes, America has become the biggest monster on the block, but only because we industrialized and harnessed fossil fuel energy first. The main point is, that time is coming to an end. BTW, I didn’t vote for GWB — you can’t blame me for the invasion of Iraq. I dispute your point that I am personally responsible for the Iraq war or for any of the bloody nonsense being perpetrated by the U.S. Those Americans who DID vote for GWB might be individually responsible, but don’t forget they were lied to and manipulated by the supporters and financiers of GWB (talking, of course, about the oil conglomerates primarily). It always boils down to the elite, greedy, power-hungry few manipulating the masses with lies and propaganda and fear. HUMANITY is to blame — the leaders we produce are defective to the extreme, and that’s just the way it is.
Makati1 on Fri, 24th Jan 2014 12:47 am
Making excuses, NR? You do not know what Japan might have done. As they did/do not have many natural resources, they would not have expanded and been as powerful as the US, no matter what their culture.
And, not, we do not ALL come from violent pasts. Many culture are NOT war mongers. Most are in the East, and a few on the islands.
As for being led to … it makes you look like a fool if you believed the unlikely. When the towers came down, I knew it was not terrorists but a controlled demolition by our very own government. Too perfect and obvious to any thinking person.
EVERY American is responsible for the blood spilled and the plundering and rape taking place in you and my name. The streets are not full of protesters are they? They should be, with guns if necessary. The French knew how to fix their elite problem, and the heads rolled, literally.
Here in the Ps, if there is a problem that the people need to change, they turn out by the millions in the streets and force change. Americans are too fat and lazy to get off their couch and turn off the TV, so you all deserve what is coming. No pity here. The poorest person in the US would not even come close to the poorest in the 3rd world.
Easy to blame others …