To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (1183413 ) 12/7/2019 1:00:14 PM From: Wharf Rat Read Replies (1) | Respond to Sunday, December 1, 2019 Above: the Financial Times of Nov 29th, 2019. Has the US really become energy independent? a recent article on Forbes by Michael Lynch. I understand that some people have a bone to pick and they want to pick it clean, but this is a little too much. Mr. Lynch is surely convinced that his opinions on peak oil have been vindicated, but it may be too early for taking a victory lap. a recent article on the Financial Times where we can read that,oil markets , a sharp reversal from past years that could affect its ties to foreign allies.production had exceeded imports -- that meant nothing, of course, it was pure dry-holing. At that time, the US had, and still has, a deficit of nearly 3 million barrels of oil in terms of import/export balance, as you can see in the figure below. (image from SeekingAlpha )The EIA data for crude oil confirm that in November of this year the US had a DEFICIT of 2.7 million barrels per day in the import/export balance. So, how can the FT claim that the US is a net exporter, then? Simple: under the category of "oil" they sum crude oil and oil products . The latter include refinery products such as kerosene, diesel fuel, lubricants, etc. And, indeed, recently the sum of the exports of these two categories has touched and slightly exceeded the curve of the crude oil imports.for how long can it continue growing? Indeed, there seems to be a suspicious excess of glee in these claims of oil abundance. Could it be an attempt to cover some big problems? Hard to say, but one thing is impressive: 2019 should the first year in a decade -- since the great recession of 2009 -- when the world oil production declined (data by Ron Patterson ).Are we looking at the other side of the growth curve ?cassandralegacy.blogspot.com
