Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mpyne 4736 days ago
The U.S. doesn't get most of its oil from abroad though. We get most of it between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The idea that the U.S. is ravenously hounding Arab countries for their oil is pretty much just a leftist myth at this point.

Most Arab oil goes to China, India, Europe. Even the Arab oil that does go to the U.S. is typically just to be refined and processed so it can turn right around and be exported back to other countries.
1 comments
dragonwriter 4736 days ago
> The U.S. doesn't get most of its oil from abroad though. We get most of it between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Canada and Mexico are part of "abroad", unless they've secretly been annexed when we were all distracted by Snowden.

Also, it doesn't get "most" from Canada and Mexico. More like a third of its imports.

> The idea that the U.S. is ravenously hounding Arab countries for their oil is pretty much just a leftist myth at this point.

OPEC, as a large cartel that controls enough of the world supply to substantially influence market prices, is an important target for influence for any purchaser of oil whether or not they directly get oil from them. That said, the US gets lots of oil from OPEC, including its Arab members; Saudi Arabia, for instance, is the #2 source of imported US oil, and Iraq and Kuwait, and are significant sources as well -- and of the non-Arab OPEC members, Venezuela is #4, some months topping Mexico as #3, and Nigeria is significant as well.)

See: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_...

link
mpyne 4736 days ago
Canada and Mexico are encompassed by free trade agreements. I walked past a Canadian government poster right here in DC the other day gloating about being the #1 oil exporter to the U.S. I should hope that my overall point is not lost in the quibbling about whether invading Iraq for oil is the same as buying it from a willing seller next door.

As for OPEC, it is true that the U.S. imports a lot of oil... it is also true that it exports a lot of refined petroleum products, as I had hinted at but didn't make fully clear. The actual U.S. usage for oil can be mostly made up by domestic (incl. regional) production, the excess refining capacity goes to support giving Europe and other nations high-quality gasoline and other products.

link