[kbeegle]

Goldman Sachs statement isn't that surprising when you think about it from the perspective of countries and country size. Of the major oil producing countries, the only one larger than the U.S. is Russia (Canada's reserves are mostly natural gas). In addition to this midwest boom, the U.S. also has large reserves in Alaska and in Gulf Coast and it makes sense to deploy newer more expensive technologies to extract new oil reserves because the consumption is happening so close to the source and a stable political environment makes it worthwhile to make long term investments. Also, the difference is not as big as I first thought it was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produc....

On the pricing, I'm speculating a bit but I don't think the refineries issue is that major an issue for gas pricing. If you remember, during Hurricane Katrina, a number of refineries were shut down or damaged and prices did bump up a bit, but not dramatically so. I think the biggest factor is there's a lot more demand for oil on the world market. We typically hear about the growing number of cars in China and India as people's income rises and car costs drop but the same is happening all over the world. This week the BBC had a good article on the 180km traffic jams in Sao Paulo, Brazil. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19660765.

Oil is a global commodity and is fairly mobile so a demand increase in one part of the world raises prices everywhere. A sustained increase in demand all over the world raises prices a lot more.

[lifeisstillgood]

I remember reading (source:?) that the US has had a (unofficial) policy since the 60s that they will import and buy oil internationally rather than rush to exploit internal oil reserves. The intention is to keep some in reserve for when the rest of the world runs out of oil.

How true it is, and how well US has kept to that I do not know, but it does speak of a degree of control and strategy one does not normally associate with governments.

[ImprovedSilence]

I've actually heard the same thing. It kinda makes sense, no?

[lifeisstillgood]

Maybe but it means a coherent focused government policy applying for decades controlling sone of the most rapacious and powerful industry interests known.

If it's a smackdown between a n other us administration and the whole oil industry I would not bet on the politicians needeing reelection

[dean]

If we're talking oil reserves, not production, then according to Wikipedia, Canada has the 3rd largest proven oil reserves in the world at 175,200,000,000 barrels. The U.S. is 13th with 20,682,000,000 barrels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil...

[kbeegle]

I had forgotten about Canada's oil supplies. If I remember right, most of it's located in oil sands in Alberta. Extracting it and transporting it used to be more expensive than it was worth but they're doing more with chemical extraction techniques to pull out the oil. From what I've read, it left some pretty serious scars on the environment.

Also, looking back at the original article, I really wonder whether there's any production or efficiency benefit to what these 3rd party companies are doing to monitor levels. I kind of have the impression that they're feeding the real time demand of commodity markets and traders. Maybe there's something with pricing efficiency, but does that really make a difference outside of the commodity markets?

[theorique]

Oil sands are economical above $60 / bbl, so it's a bull market for Alberta oil sands now.

[protomyth]

The US number is likely low because the US Gov is evaluating the size of Texas's new discovery and revising upwards the ND number.