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I know that just about everyone in this country and most of the world is being stung by the rising price of oil. Some people are hurt more than others. Many of the homes in the eastern sector of the United States are heated by oil, so those people are not only paying high gasoline bills but also high heating oil bills. The price of heating oil is sometimes more than gasoline per gallon. This is for a commodity that is not as refined and cheaper to make. So how can this be and why is diesel fuel, something that used to cost about 1/3 the price of gasoline so high? Can we blame all this on the middle east? Certainly not! This is the sort of thing that one of our former presidents Theodore Roosevelt had put a stop to in his day when he broke up Standard Oil. It is much harder to pinpoint the source of these outrageous price increases today because the game has gotten a lot more sophisticated and their are a lot more players.

I have written about this subject before, but this time I will try and go a little more in depth. The US uses 19.7 million barrels of oil per day, or so it did in 2002 when this figure was put out. To put this in proper perspective the second biggest user is Japan who used 5.4 million barrels per day. The US uses more oil than the next 6 countries on the oil consumption list. China is now third and used 4.9 million barrels per day. With such a huge oil consumption it is only logical that many schemes will be plied on the US oil market to increase prices.

The US oil production fell to its lowest output since 1950. It is estimated that the US now produces less than five million barrels of oil per day. This means that we must have about 14.7 millions barrels of oil imported every day. These figures were for September 2004 when the exact estimate of barrels of oil produced by the US per day was 4.996 million barrels.

There are 42 oil producing nations in the world. This figure is used because these 42 nations produce over 98% of all the world's oil. Oil production in the US is on a decline. In the year 2000 the entire world production of oil was 77 million barrels per day. If one were to look at a chart of oil production they would see that many of the oil producing countries have either peaked in their production of oil or are at near peak. If you listened to the oil companies and some oil producing countries, you will hear that we are running out of oil and prices must be raised. It is very easy to accept these statements because they appeal to what we believe is common sense. You drill for oil, you use it up and find more oil, but eventually you must figure that we will run out. This is what you have been indoctrinated to believe but there are other factors that big oil doesn't want you to know.

First of all, many third world countries have very little oil drilling. Because of this there could be huge reserves in these areas and this alone would change the world outlook and substantially lower prices. The US has hundreds of years worth of coal reserves. If anyone remembers, the Germans were making oil from coal in World War II. The oil companies kept saying that it was to expensive to do, but when they started saying this, gas was about 80 cents per gallon. Now that it is over $2.35 per gallon this is a very viable alternative. Why hasn't it been done? Easy, it would drop oil prices severely. The whole idea in the oil market it to get the prices sky high so that much less product will bring much more money. This is how you ensure your company's future or your country's future what ever the case may be.

Why isn't this country decreasing oil consumption, after all we have the ability to use solar, wind and water for electrical generation? We have over 30,000 dams in this country that could generate electricity. Ask yourself this question, why isn't our government taking advantage of these methods? Could it be that the oil lobby in Washington is so strong that we are being prevented from improving out lot? Lobbyists play a huge role in this country and strong lobbies are almost impossible to beat, it takes a concerted effort by the people. What politician will want to go against the oil lobby when they donate so much money to each campaign. The whole system of lobbying seems to fly in the face of what benefits the people. Maybe its time for a change but this is only a pipe dream, this will never change.

In 2004 Saudi Arabia was predicting a budget deficit when they actually ended up with a surplus that they admit to of 26.2 Billion dollars. They also admitted to revenues of 104.8 Billion dollars. There is a prediction that the oil reserves in this country will reach at least 461 Billion Barrels. By 2025 some estimates have Saudi Arabia producing 22.5 million barrels of oil per day.

The big oil companies are having a problem. They are taking cash in so fast that they have no way of spending it. Poor companies! The ten biggest oil companies earned over 100 Billion dollars in 2004. Remember these are companies not countries we are talking about. An example of this is Exxon Mobil the largest publicly traded oil company. It earned $25 Billion dollars in 2004. BP earned $16.2 Billion. Profits were up 30% in 2004 for these companies. It is unfortunate for us that there is absolutely no competition going on in this area. Just look at the gas pump prices and you will see that they are all pretty much the same. So how can this be in a capitalist country with so many different companies biding for you business? Ask you congressmen this question but be prepared to hear some nonsense for an answer.

The people of this country and indeed the world are a trapped audience for large oil. Hey if you don't put gasoline in your car, what else can you use? If you switch from heating with oil to gas you still have the same problem, high prices and for most of us electric, which is powered by oil in a lot of areas, is also too expensive for heating. Yep, they got us where they want us and they are going to keep us there as long as they can and its beginning to look like its forever.