CONNECT
U.S. Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges
Inter Press Service / News Analysis
Published: Saturday 3 September 2011
The only reason U.S. citizens may be forced to endure a risky, Canadian-owned oil pipeline called Keystone XL is so oil companies with billion-dollar profits can get the dirty oil from Canada's tar sands down to the Gulf of Mexico to export to Europe, Latin America or Asia.
With four times as many oil rigs pumping domestic oil today than eight years ago and declining domestic demand, the United States is awash in oil. In fact, the U.S. exports more oil than it imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration - and has done so for nearly two decades.
The country's oil industry is primarily interested in who will pay the most on the global marketplace. They call that "energy security" when it suits, but in reality it is "oil company security" through maximising profits, say energy experts like Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International, an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas and coal companies and governments.
The only reason U.S. citizens may be forced to endure a risky, Canadian-owned oil pipeline called Keystone XL is so oil companies with billion-dollar profits can get the dirty oil from Canada's tar sands down to the Gulf of Mexico to export to Europe, Latin America or Asia, according to a new report by Oil Change International released Wednesday.
"Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets," concludes the report, titled "Exporting Energy Security".
Little of the 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil pumped through the 2,400-kilometre, seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL will end up in U.S. gas tanks because the refineries on the Gulf Coast are all about expanding export markets. One huge refinery operator called Valero has been touting the potential export revenues of tar sands oil to investors, the report found.
Because Keystone XL crosses national borders, President Barack Obama has to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the "national interest" in order to be approved.
"The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry," said Kretzman, who wrote the report.
Canada's huge tar sands deposits, located mainly in the far north of the province of Alberta, are the world's second largest oil reserves, but they are landlocked. It's the industry's biggest worry and also Alberta Energy Minister Ron Lieper's biggest concern.
Lieper recently said that without new pipelines "our greatest risk in Alberta is that by 2020 we will be landlocked in bitumen". Bitumen is thick tarry oil from the tar sands that needs lots of high-energy and chemical processing to be useable - one reason it's widely considered the world's dirtiest oil.
The shortest route to the big Asian markets is through the Rocky Mountains to Canada's west coast via the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. However, Canadian native people live on some of the land and are staunchly opposed, so the industry thought it would be easier to put an export pipeline right through the U.S. heartland, said Kretzman.
"The oil industry would have done the Northern Gateway first but gambled that resistance to the pipeline would be far weaker in the mid-west," he told IPS.
They were wrong.
Thousands of people, including landowners and religious leaders, have gone to Washington DC in the past two weeks to tell President Obama to reject Keystone. Nearly 850 people have been arrested for standing on the sidewalk in front of the White House in what protesters call the largest civil disobedience in the history of the U.S. climate movement.
"It's remarkable, a very dignified and moving protest much like the civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s," said Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, a large environmental NGO.
"This is about the rights of the environment and future generations. It is the blossoming of a new movement," Barlow told IPS from Washington.
Other massive pipelines are being planned, including ones bringing tar sands crude to New England and the Great Lakes, she said. "Keystone is just the beginning. Once these are built they will have to put something in them."
Infrastructure dictates policy, she stressed. Once pipelines, refineries or power plants are built, it is nearly impossible for governments to shut them down.
Last year, scientists writing in the journal Science concluded there is already enough fossil fuel burning capacity to raise global temperatures by 1.5 degrees C by 2060. Any additional power plants, vehicles, or other fossil fuel burning equipment built from 2011 onward puts humanity at ever greater risk of catastrophic climate change.
"We conclude that sources of the most threatening emissions have yet to built," the scientists wrote.
The Obama administration knows this but the powerful oil lobby can use its unlimited funds to attack Democratic officials during the next election cycle if they don't approve the pipeline, says Kretzman.
Changes to U.S. law in 2010 allow corporations to spend as much as they want on elections, and there is no sector with more money than the oil industry.
"That scares the hell out of the Obama administration," he said.
It's never been clearer that corporations wield the real power in the United States and Canada, activists say.
"This is the beginning of a very big fight for the future," Barlow told IPS.
Visit IPS news for fresh perspectives on development and globalization.
Top Stories
By Richard (RJ) Eskow
27 comments on "U.S. Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges"
fxewpfeo
September 05, 2011 9:01am
This IPS article was corrected several days ago. The second sentence is wrong. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104972
Update the article please.
September 05, 2011 8:39am
John, you are correct. The second sentence is incorrect an has been corrected by IPS http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104972
September 04, 2011 12:01pm
I think it is possible the writer erred in querying the US EIA tables. If you look at REFINED oil ONLY, in some of the past 20 years the U.S. has exported more than it imported. But it is CRUDE oil that we talk about when we talk about oil imports. In 2009, the last year that statistics are available, we imported 1255 thousand gallons per day of refined per day, and exported 1876. But we imported 9013 thousand gallons of CRUDE per day, and exported 44. Keystone would be an ecological disaster, no doubt, but the statement that we are awash in oil appears to be BS.Still, it's an interesting topic, and I'm looking a little further at the statistics.
September 04, 2011 9:16am
It's getting harder all of the time to believe statistics. Secret bailouts alone would disqualify most financial stats.
Bickering over how to trim the ugly tree is no answer. Uproot the damned thing. Regulate or stop the lobby cartels.
September 04, 2011 7:57am
Speaking of lies, the title of this article is awash in one. The US definitely does not export more oil than it imports. The author and/or editor owe readers a correction and/or apology.
September 04, 2011 7:56am
Speaking of lies, the title of this article is awash in one. The US definitely does not export more oil than it imports. The author and/or editor owe readers a correction and/or apology.
September 04, 2011 5:18am
Any fool can see there is a problem when world oil prices go down and consequently American gasoline prices go up. You don't have to be an expert to figure that one out.
Mike,
SonAmericanRevolution,
AntiSemantic because I hate Duplicity, Lies, Doubletalk and Fraud on the American People
September 04, 2011 12:20am
Alas TECHNOWHIZ, Obama didn't bring Universal Health Care to America. He brought us a Universal Requirement to be taken advantage of by big American health insurance companies. There are no effective cost or price controls which means that even though the companies cannot turn us down for pre-existing conditions, they can charge so much it is not affordable. The whole thing was a scam, just like everything else this president does. Hooray for British Columbians! You are my heroes! You have your political priorities straight and you have better control of your politics.
September 03, 2011 9:06pm
Democracy ruled supremely here in British Columbia last week...a referendum cancelled our Harmonized 12% Sales Tax... a warning to the corporations and oil companies we're all getting fed up with taxation without representation and no amount of PR will prevail over common sense. Hmmm...anybody wonder why the Canadian socialised medical system is still working well and the economy in Canada is in better shape than in the US?I don't think we're missing a thing... we all know it's insanity to allow 850 people to be arrested for peacefully expressing their freedom of Speech and assembly.Thank God Obama managed to bring in Universal Health Care before he sold out. He can be forgiven if he stands up to the Corporate Welfare Bums (who pay $18 to extract a barrel of oil from the tar sands) once and for all.
September 03, 2011 8:46pm
As a Canadian, I'm more worried about sending a pipeline to the coast because of the potential for spills. We have all been lied to endlessly about just about everything...remember "Peak Oil"? As for CO2 being able to change the climate, that is the biggest of the Big Lies ever.
"Last week, 63 scientists from CERN, the unimpeachable European Organization for Nuclear Research, published a paper in the journal Nature that would seem to prove that the sun and not humans is the main “driver” of climate on Earth.
In short, cloud cover is the most important determinant of global warming or cooling. Tiny changes in the percentage of Earth shielded by clouds (or not) can cause a variation in global temperatures of several degrees, down or up. Cosmic rays are the main cause of cloud formation – the more rays from outer space reaching our planet’s atmosphere, the more clouds form and the cooler the surface becomes.
In turn, the amount of cosmic rays penetrating our atmosphere is determined by the activity of the sun’s magnetic field. When our sun is particularly active, it blocks cosmic rays. This reduces cloud formation, permits more solar rays to reach Earth and increases global temperatures.
By comparison, the CERN team found human CO2 emissions have little or no impact, or at the very least their impact has been greatly overestimated in the computer models global-warming alarmists rely on to show dangerous future climate." Lorne Gunter, National Post.
September 03, 2011 8:25pm
I checked U.S. Energy Information Administration and found that in 2009, the latest year documented and the US Imported 11 million barrels a day and Exported 2.3 - where did the author get his facts?
September 03, 2011 6:27pm
a war was started so the oil companys would have a market for theyre oil. don't believe it? in 2001 it was a headline in the buisness section of the newspaper. there was more oil than was needed and ca. had plenty of jobs. saudi arabia was worried that they would not be able to sell it all. now the u.s. oays 600 per gal for fuel in afghanistan. oh yeah texas just opened a new field with 10 yrs. worth of oil to drill.
September 03, 2011 4:16pm
Years ago Lindsay Williams wrote in his book "The Energy Non-crises" that as a chaplain in many oil executive CEO boardrooms, he was privy to many of the industry's secrets. One of them was their admission that there was enough oil & natural gas in the Alaskan oil fields to supply this country's energy need for 200+ years, cheap. But these wells were ordered capped, and Americans can't by law use any of it, all to keep gas prices artificially high. This article only confirms what Mr. Williams wrote. This is the worst kind of evil greed imaginable. No doubt the satanic Rothschield family are behind. This evil bloodline is worth $500 trillion, half the world's wealth, but it's not enough for them. These devilish swine want it all.
September 04, 2011 1:22am
I am well aware of the satanic Rothschild family and their evil machinations that, for nearly 2 centuries, have brought strife to Europe and America. They have created and nursed small problems so that most of them have become/will become raging monsters in today's world. They then tell us that by having "elites" (themselves and others of their kind) control everything in a global government, all of the problems (which they have clandestinely created) will be easily resolved and prevented from recurring. If it really does come into existence, the so-called "anti-Christ" must be one of the evil Rothschild family
September 03, 2011 2:54pm
I would really like to believe this information and am so liberal I'm left of Attila the Nun ... however, the USA definitely does NOT export more oil than we import ... I think the author is confused ... perhaps from article at EIA labeling exports as imports ... http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level... ... i.e., the title is import by which countries EXPORT most oil into the USA ...
September 03, 2011 2:37pm
The worst lie I see in this article is the claim that the US awash in oil, exporting more than it imports. Either the author sees fit to indulge the delusional expectations of a Happy Motoring American middle class, or he is deluded himself.
Honesty and sanity would look like us - YOU! ME! HIM! Making plans to leave some oil in the ground, just in case our grandchildren need it for something more important than playing on snowmobiles and driving ourselves and our children everywhere in 2-3 ton armored personnel carriers.
This website has lost credibility with me.
September 03, 2011 2:27pm
Let's move forward with the Picken's Plan and get the natural gas going...
September 03, 2011 12:46pm
solve the problem i got the answer. home heating oil. through out canada and the u.s. complete conversion to gas no dependency little cost no one wants to do it loss of jobs loss of profits. everyone happy except the momopolies
September 03, 2011 12:15pm
It seems to me that in order to truly secure oil independence from other countries we should conserve our domestic oil for the time we would really need it. We should use imported oil as much as possible now and at the same time transition to non oil and non fossil fuel energy sources as quickly as possible. Germany had little domestic energy sources and this was one reason they started World War II. When the US entered the war the need for oil resources escalated to keep the Nazi war effort going. They failed to get Russian oil and literally ran out of oil. " True American Patriots" should advocate leaving our oil in the ground should the day come when we need it over here to defend ourselves. Keeping our oil would also provide leverage against price spikes as we could refuse to pay outrageous costs per barrel. Or maybe the "True American Patriots" sense that they need to get their "Dirty Oil" out of the ground ASAP as dwindling oil supplies will cause a quicker shift to other sources and the bottom will drop out of the market before they can meet their financial goals.
September 03, 2011 12:39pm
I wanted to verify that we export more oil than we import (for use in a blog) so I went to the U.S. Energy Information Administrations website - http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_home#tab2. It shows that we import 9 million barrels a day and export 2 million barrels a day (2010 data). Where are you getting your data?
Thanks
September 03, 2011 11:59am
Speaking of lies... We were once told that the reason gasoline and diesel prices were outpacing the price of crude was that the US lacked sufficient refineries and that we were importing gasoline from the Netherlands. And no one would build refineries in the US because the environmental regs were to onerous.
NOW, we have enough excess capacity to refine the goop from Canada and export it?
San Francisco, Ca
September 03, 2011 10:55am
BARACK "He Who Speaks With Forked Tongue" OBAMA.
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON ?
September 03, 2011 10:43am
They don't care...its about squeezing all of us until death
September 03, 2011 10:35am
If we export more oil than we import why is the cost of oil imports such a major factor in our balance of payments. We have been told that we can reduce our trade deficit by producing more domestic oil. What am I missing here?
September 04, 2011 12:22am
You're missing the Truth.
September 03, 2011 11:22am
Suddencall You are missing you ability to discern truth from lies. If a politician says something ,you know it is a lie. If a corporation says something you know it is a lie, If a five year old American says something you know it is a lie. So why are you confused?