The State of the Woild

An article today in the San Diego Union discusses the current state of the "major" western oil companies and how they are loosing their grip on world oil supplies.
It's an interesting read and confirms what many already knew before the "mainstream" press got a hold of it, but it fails to connect the dots between oil and military missions.

"As late as the 1970s, Western corporations controlled significantly more than half of the world's oil production. These companies – Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Total of France and Eni of Italy – now produce just 13 percent.

Today's 10 largest holders of petroleum reserves are state-owned companies, such as Russia's Gazprom and Iran's national oil company.

Sluggish supplies have prompted a cottage industry of doomsday predictions that the world's oil production has reached a peak. But many energy experts say these “peak oil” theories are misplaced. They say the world is not running out of oil – rather, the companies that know the most about how to produce oil are running out of places to drill.

“There is still a lot of oil to develop out there, which is why we don't call this geological peak oil, especially in places like Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Iraq,” said Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs. “What we have now is geopolitical peak oil.”" (full story here)

Is it really any surprise that the countries mentioned here are areas where we are directly engaged in military conflict or saber rattling?

Is it really any surprise that the US has increased it's naval presence in Africa?

"Even in places where they are allowed to operate, the Western oil companies face growing problems. Countries such as Russia, Algeria, Nigeria and Angola have recently sought to renegotiate their contracts with foreign investors to capture a bigger share of the profits."

The use of oil as a fuel is becoming a real loser. It's dirty, expensive and getting harder to aquire. Factor in the cost of using the worlds greatest military machine to protect it and it becomes evermore clear that we could be using hamsters in exercise wheels to produce cheaper power.

We the tax payers are financing this "get it while you can" exercise and the sooner we stop going along with this charade, the sooner we can get on with a more positive cost effective approach to our energy needs.