On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 07:57:36PM -0600, Michael Torrie wrote: > Charles Curley wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 04:27:34PM -0600, Stuart Jansen wrote: > >> On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 16:19 -0600, Charles Curley wrote: > >>> And if McCain gets elected, expect it to go up faster than if Obama > >>> gets elected. > >> Huh? How do you figure? > > > > The current US war has taken out the former second largest producer of > > petroleum in the world. > > Come again? Iraq's oil production was incredibly low during the time > between the first gulf war and the present conflict, due to the embargos > and such. True Saddam still enriched himself with the oil (particularly > under the so-called oil-for-food program). To say that Iraq was the > second-largest producer of petroleum in the world *before* we invaded > Iraq is really silly. Iraq is now at #12 [1], which is much better than > 8 years ago. No way was Iraq ever #2 though. Kuwait is probably around > #7, which was always higher than Iraq. Remember that the first gulf war > was essentially to secure the oil in Kuwait that Saddam's invasion > threatened to cut us off from.
You're right, I misspoke. Iraq has one of the larger reserves of petroleum, which I mis-remembered. Still, when one of the largest reserves gets into a war, traders get nervous and the price goes up. This chart puts Iraq behind Saudi Arabia and Canada: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves. The Canadian figures include the Athabasca tar sands, which are much more expensive to produce than petoleum as in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Exclude those and Canada drops down the table, making Iraq's reserves #2 according to the chart and #3 according to the article. > > People say the current war in Iraq is all about oil. That's obviously > BS. For one, wars in the region always increase the price of oil (not > decrease) and two, Iraq's oil production isn't affecting the supply that > much comparatively. It might buy us a bit of oil security in the long > run, but not much. My only conclusion is that the war in Iraq must have > been launched for other, likely misguided, reasons. If the war ever was really about oil, it was an incredibly stupid blunder. Which means it's typical of government. > > [1] > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chart_of_exports_and_production_of_oil_by_nation -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
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