First of all, Hi, welcome to ET.
I disagree with your statment.
Those old enough to remember the gasoline crisis of 1979 may recall sitting in long lines of cars at filling stations, waiting sometimes for hours to reach the pump. This was one of the most common consequences of price control throughout history a shortage. Also in The 1970s also saw spikes in world oil prices as Middle East nations tried to choke off America's economy.
Did you noticed that americans haven't been waiting in gasoline lines since Ronald Reagan got rid of the price controls on oil??..
The main reason why the gas prices drop since last summer was due the lack of demand (europe and us are almost broke), The RBOB market and the hole Crude Complex has been in a major Contango since june 2008, In fact, one of the largest contango in history.
In the other hand, Some producing countries like mexico for example are having big troubles this days. Cantarell is largest oil fields ever discovered in mexico and which provided 60% of Mexican production at its peak, has declined faster than expected in recent years. This has eroded Mexico's overall crude output and exports. State-run Petroleos Mexicanos is now scrambling to find and develop new pools of oil to compensate.
Last year Cantarell output fell by one-third to an average of 1 million barrels a day, dragging down overall Mexican production to a 13-year low of 2.79 million barrels a day (cantarell producing 770,000 out of it), Pemex continues to shut in wells at Cantarell that produce too much natural gas or water.
In 2009 Cantarell will produce only between 700,000 and 600,000 barrel per day, and mexico is our third largest partner in crude imports.
Venezuela Crude is dirty and hard to refine crude, is a very sour crude, so, yes, we will have some imbalance ( volatibility ) until the governments give some strong incentive to develope some state of the art technology in this industry.
the Senate voted in June to mandate a reduction in projected future oil usage of 10 million barrels a day, or 35%, which, since our domestic oil production is declining, means less imports. In other words, Congress wants to block drilling for more American oil while at the same time blocking the importation of oil--not a rational energy policy.
BTW: Is not really about how much oil is around, the problem Is about the (technological and political) efficiency to get that oil.
Don't Forget that we haven't built a new refinery in America for 30 years, Twenty-five years ago we had 254 oil refineries; today there are just 145.
Quote from DDuffeeInc:
That is not what happened last year. The entire " the world is running out of oil !!!" fiasco was cause by paper trading. Not once did you go to a station and they were out of fuel, like in the 70's.
Look at things now. They have actually had to throttle things back to help stop the glut. There is plenty of oil NOW ! They are only trying to keep the stranglehold of high prices on the average Joe. And I don't mean that Werzlebocker guy or however you spell his name.
Right now with unemployment at close to record levels and tankers which are full and parked off shore with oil.
What happened to Caribou Barbie and the "Drill Drill Drill" BS that was going around last year???? They only wanted to "Drill Drill Drill" the average hard working taxpayer in the rectum with outrageous costs to go to work and help pay taxes.
Anyone who does not think that $5.00 and upwards for a gallon of gasoline is not one hell of a "tax burden" should stand back and be observant.
I hope for the day when alternative sources are reasonable and a choke hold is placed on carbon fuels.