The Cowardly Giants

It really doesn't matter what Big Oil does because Big Oil is a two bit piker in the game anymore -- and will their role will only continue to diminish. The numbers we trot out concerning their profits and expenditures surely blow our hair back, but they are chump change to the real players in today's energy industry -- the national oil companies. We should focus more on who among these entities gets our money and what they plan to do with it.

There IS a "dirty little secret" about petroleum reserves, and it has a lot to do with the pricing of this dirty stuff. The fact is that there is rising evidence about the "abiotic" source of petroleum (what you gringos call "oil") which in turn would mean that there ARE limitless, or almost limitless, supplies worldwide. It's only becoming more and more expensive to find and drill for. But the smelly stuff IS there.

wonder when it will be that the big five oil companys all move to dubia with their newly liquid cash and are in a position to be putting economic santions on the u.s. in order to have continuing growth.

This article only makes sense if one believes there are endless, or nearly so, amounts of oil to be found. It will be a while yet but at some point it will begin to dawn on Americans that oil resources are limited. Additionally, what is left is extremely expensive and technologically difficult to drill, transport and refine. Plus someone else owns almost all of what is out there. The rest of the world is finally wising up to our exploitation and tired of watching their people live in poverty while we arrogantly romp all over everything in sight. If we used oil at the level of Europeans, there would be 11 million extra barrels of oil on the market and oil would be considerably cheaper. So it's not nasty old oil companies or terrible terrorists or bad old Iran. It's our out of control lifestyle. In the meantime. oil companies make excellent scapegoats. Dream on!!