"The Saudis supply about one-sixth of US oil imports. But what gives Saudi Arabia its considerable political strength is its role as the only producer with the spare capacity to replace millions of barrels a day of lost oil.
That amount could be drained from the market temporarily by an attack on Iraq, according to the administration's internal assessments as well as outside experts."
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Saudi Arabia still holds all the oil aces
WASHINGTON - Nearly a dozen years after the Persian Gulf war, when reliance on Saudi supplies prompted calls for the United States to diversify its sources of oil, the US remains as dependent as ever on the Saudis, according to government and industry officials.
The Saudis supply about one-sixth of US oil imports. But what gives Saudi Arabia its considerable political strength is its role as the only producer with the spare capacity to replace millions of barrels a day of lost oil.
That amount could be drained from the market temporarily by an attack on Iraq, according to the administration's internal assessments as well as outside experts.
'The Saudis have by far the largest amount of unused capacity,' said Mr Guy Caruso, the head of the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the US have been strained since the participation of Saudis in the Sept 11 attacks last year prompted close scrutiny of the country's role in financing and otherwise supporting Islamic radicalism.
But the Bush administration's strategic options are clearly limited by American dependence on Saudi oil. ( bolding done by "lil ritchie")
Last month Mr Caruso's office helped prepare an 'oil market contingency planning' book, based entirely on public data.
The Energy Department has restricted the book's distribution to keep it from Congress and the public, according to government officials.
In an interview last month, Mr Caruso cited a small portion of the book's contents to illustrate the unique role of Saudi Arabia.
Because there are no reporting requirements in the international oil industry, capacity figures vary widely.
Mr Caruso's agency estimates that Saudi Arabia has slightly more than half the spare production capacity of about five million barrels a day that exists in Opec member nations.
But a group of experts led by Mr Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, estimates that total spare capacity is only three million barrels, and that the Saudis control two-thirds of that. --New York Times |
