Let me start by saying, all of this talk of oil is getting a little far from Tenchu's original post about food and population.
Most people on this forum don't really understand how the oil industry thinks and operates. My grandparents are deeply involved with oil and I have a different perspective than what is typically seen in the news.
Very few people realize how much oil and gas may be under their feet, but trust me when I say the oil companies do. Oil supplies in the ground are quite good, even without the drilling of additional fields. In the southern U.S. there are many wells that have been shut down for the last few decades. This is not because there is not oil in the wells, but because it is cheaper to acquire from sources like the middle-east and Africa.
Now that the price of oil has began to rise many of those dormant pumps are being turned on. There has also been a resurgence of drilling operations world wide. This is not because the oil is needed for immediate consumption, but because with the current oil prices the cost of drilling are quickly recovered.
Competition between oil company is one of the big reasons why they want to invest into new oil and gas fields like Alaska and Brazil. This is because once they have a hole in the ground, they will have secured the rights to that revenue source for many years to come.
Now I would like to for us to get back to the original topic of this thread.
