Gas price Jan 2009

[Phokaioglaukos]

One of my college classmates wrote the following, and I thought you might be interested in seeing it--particularly how Japan and Germany are increasing demand.

Wait a moment!

Under the heading of "Energy Independence," this is wrong.

The national press is poorly informed. 

The US produces some 6 million bbls per day and still imports more than 10 million bbls per day of crude oil.

See our papers on http://www.ssrn.com, and, in particular, Crude Oil Imports and National Security (Ames, Corridore, Hirs and MacAvoy co-authors) and the citations.

See http://yaleae.org/ and come to the 4th Yale Alumni in Energy Conference which I founded and co-chair---March 23 in New Haven. We have alumni and faculty leaders in energy meeting together with students.

The United States is  now exporting roughly 3 million bbls of refined products per day (Dec data is most recent). The US demand for refined products is down almost 3 million bbls per day since 2008. The exports are because we have refineries that can handle the heavy, sour crude that comes from Venezuela, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

The increased worldwide demand for refined products comes from the urgently placed turbine units in Japan and Germany to replace the nuclear units taken offline.

I teach the energy economics classes in Houston---undergraduate and graduate levels---at the University of Houston.