Can Palin see Libya from her house?

I can already here the chants from Palin and the rest of the gas and oil crowd that we need to drill more offshore and in Alaska because we are so dependent on Mideast oil and the recent unrest there is jeopardizing our national interests.  Also, the crisis in Libya is already causing major increases in crude oil prices.  Unfortunately, that is only half of the truth.  The price of oil/barrel and ultimately the price at the pump will spike because commodities traders are now trying to cover their short positions by buying oil long.  In English, commodity traders were betting oil was going to be going down and now are betting heavily it will go up.  When there are a lot of long bets the price increases from the regional tumult get further exacerbated.
Looking at the tables below, you can see that in the top table that summarizes oil imports into the US Libya does not even appear.  While in the 2nd table, Libya doesn’t even crack the top 20 in global production.  Now I realize there is a regional impact going on, but keep in mind our national storage reserves are very high and we are the world’s number three producer, something that is lost on many.  If they could figure out away to justify a price increase on every time Lindsay Lohan gets arrested, they would.

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country
Nov-10
Oct-10
YTD 2010
Nov-09
YTD 2009
CANADA
1,975
1,840
1,963
2,018
1,928
MEXICO
1,229
1,178
1,132
951
1,095
SAUDI ARABIA
1,119
1,114
1,081
847
991
VENEZUELA
884
887
920
793
968
NIGERIA
806
812
982
948
753
COLOMBIA
489
400
349
216
258
ALGERIA
379
259
331
219
276
IRAQ
340
143
421
461
461
ANGOLA
263
311
387
408
465
ECUADOR
188
203
196
150
190
BRAZIL
188
168
252
261
306
KUWAIT
170
215
202
287
182
RUSSIA
85
182
261
168
236
UNITED KINGDOM
80
0
120
90
106
INDONESIA
55
49
34
7
15


Total Oil Supply (Thousand Barrels/Day)
OCT-2010
Rank
World
86835.19
1
Russia
10256.38
12%
2
Saudi Arabia
10187.12
12%
3
United States
9783.871
11%
4
China
4377.752
5%
5
Iran
4237.475
5%
6
Canada
3360.428
4%
7
Mexico
2968.904
3%
8
United Arab Emirates
2818.181
3%
9
Brazil
2696.641
3%
10
Nigeria
2583.112
3%
11
Kuwait
2500.919
3%
12
Iraq
2383.897
3%
13
Venezuela
2370.077
3%
14
Norway
2236.82
3%
15
Algeria
2157.148
2%
16
Angola
1841.496
2%
17
Libya
1789.155
2%
18
Kazakhstan
1607.26
2%
19
Qatar
1539.662
2%
20
United Kingdom (Offshore)
1297
1%
Rest of World
13845
16%


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