The perpetual war party is itching for a reason to provoke war with Iran. The thing on Drudge at the moment is 4 Iranian patrol boats “actimg unprofessional” around an American warship.
This is not 1973. Shutting down the straits of Hormuz is a very weak threat, especially toward the United States. China? Maybe.
It’s very easy to confuse terminology and statistics, sometimes done on purpose. A few basics
– OPEC does not mean just “Middle East Oil” – Venezuela and Nigeria are members of OPEC.
– % of imports vs % of consumption in 2015, the US consumed 18 million barrels a day, but only a net import of 4.5 million barrels a day, 40% coming from Canada
– total global demand for oil is 90 million barrels a day, or 32 billion barrels a year.
– proven reserves of oil as of 2014 were 1656 billion barrels, or a 50 year supply at current consumption levels and technology
– the US imports 1 million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia, primarily because Saudi Owned Aramco currently operates a refinery in Houston and shockingly they buy their own oil
– consumption of oil includes refining crude into finished products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil). Much of that is exported to countries that lack refining capacity (like Mexico). Since refined products are blended and transported many different ways, it isn’t possible to directly correlate which oil (domestic or imported) is in the finished products being exported
In 2012, Saudi Arabia and UAE completed two projects to export oil without transiting the Straits of Hormuz – pipelines to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean respectively. Libya obviously is not affected. Iraq’s Kurkuk oil fields have pipelines that go west to Europe.
The biggest loser if the straits of Hormuz is closed is Iran. Almost all of Iran’s exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
US Refinery info
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_cap1_dcu_nus_a.htm
Running at 18 million barrels a day, very little idle capacity. One of the challenges of fracking was to adjust most of that capacity to handle American crude. About 3 million barrels a day of finished products are exported
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States
Motiva is the World’s largest refinery – 50/50 owned by Shell Oil and Aramco, currently being split up -capacity 600,000 barrels a day. There are 137 active US refineries
Thats good info. You know, we should just go back to being ‘Imperialist Dog’ and take over VeneZuela. They already hate us, so lets give them a real reason.
Venezuela has consistently shown it cannot govern itself. They are dragging down the rest of South America. They have vast oil reserves and excellent mining opportunities, but they can’t get their head out of their ass to be prosperous. They could rival Brazil, cause we all know what a basket case it is.
They are always bitchin how bad we are, how we never give back canals we build, so screw it, just go in and take over. Haji can’t govern and neither can ‘Jose’, goober running Venezuela.
It could be the ‘cuba’ we never had. Let Shikira and Columbia run the place, we just take a cut, you know, ‘A piece of the Action’ .
Put a Trump hotel there, bring back ‘ Citgo to America. Little known fact about ‘parrott’ he use to work for Citgo back in the roaring eighties. Before new ‘coke’.
Peace be with you
parrott