Why do neo-cons say that drilling for more oil will lower gas prices when Iraq's oil made prices a lot higher?

Question

"Our" supplies increased a lot with Iraq--they're only second to Saudi Arabia! And oil is being shipped to China--from Alaska!

Answer 1

Honey, it's called the law of supply and demand.  Iraq's oil hasn't made oil prices a lot higher.  Iraq's smaller oil contributions (due to destruction  of oil fields and refineries by dissidents) has contributed to a lowered international supply of oil.  Increased usage of oil by India and China has also contributed to a decreased oil supply.  There have even been oil pipelines in Mexico blown up by terrorists and activity to hinder oil production at facilities all over the world.  Even less oil.

When supplies decrease, prices increase.  It's basic economics.  If the US produces additional oil, supplies would increase and prices would decrease.

Don't they teach this in school anymore?

"The world faces an energy squeeze as soaring demand for fuel exceeds the rate of growth in the supply of crude oil, the West’s leading energy forecaster has predicted.

In a gloomy appraisal of the global oil balance, the International Energy Agency yesterday predicted a world of increasing market tightness beyond 2010. The world faces a “supply crunch” by 2012, according to the agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report, with weak increases in oil output from nonOpec countries colliding with strong demand and diminished spare capacity within the cartel of oil producers."

(I see a trend here.  I cite honest to God news sites and you cite blogs and political websites.  Go figure.  There is none so blind as he who will not see.  How can you debate with someone who closes his eyes and puts his fingers in his ears.  The answer is, you don't. Carry on. Rant away.)

Answer 2

so they can bash the Democrats

they say "Drill-Drill-Drill" and the price of gas will "tank" overnight.

of course that's NOT true

so we Democrats say "not so fast"

so then they say "Dems HATE America - they wont let us drill - they would rather have us suffer"

"oh why oh why do the Democrats Hate their own country so much ?"

see ? it's almost sorta fun.

and it's Easy to buy into.

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The U.S. is the world's Third largest petroleum producer, though it has Only the 12th largest crude reserve.

so OBVIOUSLY we are drilling and pumping  !!!!!

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as for the people who are Rudely telling you about supply and demand

..Saudi Arabia's state owned oil company - ARAMCO will Soon open up the "Khurais Field"

Khurais will pump 1.2 Million Barrels of oil per day  !!!

( how much did this recent news drop the price of gas ? - it didn't !! )

and..

Saudi Arabia is the ONLY nation with significant excess capacity that it can/could put on the market quickly.

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+ people that talk demand and supply should talk about Peak Oil if they want to act like they are truthful and honest

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FYI - Alaskan oil is No longer being shipped overseas.

in 2007 the U.S. exported a Very small amount of crude (about 10 thousand barrels) - all of it to Canada !

yes - that is strange, because Canada is our chief supplier of foreign oil.

Answer 3

Because they want people to believe that it's just oil drilling moratoriums (moratoria?) that are keeping the US from having all the oil it wants and having 29 cent per gallon gasoline again. In reality if we could open up drilling everywhere in the US and it wouldn't lower our prices any.  First, because it's a long time between drilling and having a producing field and the price of oil will have just kept going up in that time.  Second, there is just not that much oil to found in the US. The odds of finding another Ghawar in the US are very very slim.  Here's an image of past oil production in the US and projected if ANWR were brought online http://www.theoildrum.com/files/GTSEI_Sh...

It's just a small blip on the declining curve of US production, which is already much smaller than US demand. If we bring all these postulated fields online it will make the price for gas in the US fractionally smaller than it would be without them, but that fraction is something like 5%.  Considering that the price of gasoline in the US has already gone up something like 35% just this year, I'm not going to get too excited by what unlimited drilling will do for us.

Bottom line, opening drilling offshore and in ANWR is about making money, it will do practically nothing for US oil self-sufficiency or the price of gas.