Stop Supporting Middle East/OPEC and Hugo

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1


This in part, a chain e-mail I received, then added some extra content for consideration.

If you want to fight terrorism, you can do your part by not supporting the countries that help finance terrorism through us buying their products. I think it would be good for all of us to start thinking about where the products origin is when purchasing any item, be it clothes, cars and especially GAS. It’s astounding how much we purchase in this country that is imported vs a homegrown product. I’d say only 10-15% of what we buy as consumers originate in the US.

Are you aware that the Saudis are boycotting American products? In
addition, they are gouging us on oil prices.

Shouldn’t we return the favor? Can’t we take control of our own destiny
and let these giant oil importers know who REALLY generates their
profits, their livings? How about leaving American Dollars in America
and reduce the import/export deficit?

An appealing remedy might be to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill
up your car you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi
Arabia . Just purchase gas from companies that don’t import their oil
from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up
my tank, I’m sending my money to people who want me, my family and my
friends dead.

The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell…205,742,000 bbl
Chevron/Texaco…144,332,000 bbl
Exxon Mobil…130,082,000 bbl
Marathon/Speedway…117,740,000 bbl
Amoco…62,231,000 bbl

CITGO oil is from Venezuela , the “President” is Dictator Hugo Chavez who
openly hates America and vows to cause our economic destruction! (We pay
Chavez’s regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)

The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from
OPEC. If you do the math at $70 per barrel, (today’s price) that’s over
$386 million PER DAY ($141 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many
of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!

It won’t stop here - oil prices could go to $200 a barrel or higher if
we’re not careful and keep buying their products.

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco… 0 barrels
Conoco… 0 barrels
Sinclair… 0 barrels
BP / Phillips… 0 barrels
Hess. … 0 barrels
ARC0… 0 barrels
Maverick… 0 barrels
Flying J. … 0 barrels
Valero… 0 barrels
Murphy Oil USA … 0 barrels

Note: Murphy is sold at Wal-Mart , the gas is from South Arkansas and
fully USA owned and produced.
*Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in their town
who finish high school and are legal US citizens. (except it’s Wal-Mart! bh)

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy
and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how
much they are importing.

But to have a real impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas
buyers With the help of the Internet, it’s really simple to do. Just E-mail your friends and get the word out.

This is something we can truly do as individuals who are politically aware. I will feel a lot better about pumping my gas since it isn’t financing the people who hate us and are sworn enemies.

Question:

DOES THIS CHANGE ANYONES VIEWS ON THESE GAS COMPANIES?

WILL YOU CHANGE YOUR GAS VENDOR BASED IN THIS INFORMATION?

2

It just occured to me that when you also count military mareriel the US has no trade deficiit at all!

Just a very unusual way of exporting.

3

I already get my gas at sunoco Homie! Doesn’t hurt that there is 1 right across from my work and 1 within a mile of my house.

V

4

I already get my gas from Arco, and after reading this, am glad that I am. Americans need to keep their dollars here, leading to more jobs here, and our economy here getting better here. Great thread Rock, I had no idea which companies were from OPEC and who weren’t.

5

Max, I’m guessing there will be a few on this board who will now frequent CITGO! I like Shell and Chevron gas, but it’s time to move on. I always thought Arco was substandard.

I’ll be checking into Safeways gas source as it’s cheap and sometimes you get 30 cents off a gallon if you shop there… but I don’t know who supplies the barrels for it yet.

6

Not that I knew anything about this, but the biggies in my town happen to be Hess, BP and Valero, so I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.

7

I like your thinking, but your list isn’t accurate.

-I know for sure that BP operates Middle East leases. Also, Amoco and BP merged about 15 years ago, so how are they on different lists? Arco is also owned by BP.

-Valero is a refiner (doesn’t operate any leases), so they purchase crude from many sources, including foreign. They operate a tanker port to take in large amounts of foreign crude.

-Conoco/Phillips (includes Conoco, Route 66, and 76) operates leases in Lybia.

-Hess operates leases in Lybia and Egypt.

The ones that probably are accurate:
-Flying J operates 2 refineries (soon to be only 1 as CA regulations force them out of CA) that only process domestic crude.

-Sinclair operates only domestic leases.

-Citgo is definitely run by Chavez, so they certainly suck big ass.

Most multinational oil companies buy and sell crude from many sources. You really can’t consider any of them to be “purely domestic”. I’m happy if the company HQ is domestic and most of the employees and profits stay here.

8

So maybe Murphys is the only one? WTF is wrong here? Why doe we become slaves to these guys? My answer is it’s the environmental aspect. It’s a friggin tragedy. I want to purchase American drillled and refined oil products…where do we go??

9

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
So maybe Murphys is the only one? WTF is wrong here? Why doe we become slaves to these guys? My answer is it’s the environmental aspect. It’s a friggin tragedy. I want to purchase American drillled and refined oil products…where do we go??[/quote]

We’re not so much slaves to them. The reason large E&P companies drill in the ME is because the leases are relatively cheap, and many of the fields are pretty shallow and not too technically complicated. This keeps the overall cost per barrel low. What typically happens is that the E&P company buys the lease (rights to the oil) from the government, contracts a drilling company, produces the oil, and ships it off to refineries or the open market. Any company that buys oil off the open commodity market will end up getting oil from many sources, depending on their requirements for the physical properties of the crude. Most foreign oil-producing countries also run their own government E&P companies, which generally just sell into the market. That said, many ME leases are joint venture operations between a national E&P (like Saudi Aramco) and a “Big Oil” company. Its a very complicated industry.

If you want domestic-only oil, look at smaller domestic companies that refine local crude. Like I said, Flying J is one of those, but you can’t always go to a truck stop to fill up.

10

I buy the cheapest gas I can get, and that happens to be BP/Arco/Phillips. It is named AM/PM, and they always at least .02 below the rest of the surrounding area. Most of the time they around .04-.05.

11

I think what we need to do is stop with all this Buy America, and instead stop the protectionist policies, stop government spending and taxing of individuals and businesses, stop the regulations, tariffs, and quotas, and stop with all this environmentalist crap that is actually hurting America.

12

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I think what we need to do is stop with all this Buy America, and instead stop the protectionist policies, stop government spending and taxing of individuals and businesses, stop the regulations, tariffs, and quotas, and stop with all this environmentalist crap that is actually hurting America.[/quote]

We cannot do that as citizens, unless we take to the streets. Rock’s idea is golden, because it is both easy to do, easy to spread the message, and if done on a massive level could show that we are tired of this bullshit.

13

Agreed Maximus, but me being a capitalist, this (ideally) would only be a short-term thing until we can stop the bullshit government spending… which is just not gonna happen.

14

The one thing I’ve heard that I have not confirmed is that if the per capita consumption of oil by Americans were reduced to 1/3 of current, this would be roughly the level of oil consumption of the average European, that the USA would become an exporter of oil and not an importer.

So along w/ changing the source of your gasoline, I will also suggest an attempt to try and use less of it.

15

Whether you’re a fan of global warming or not, wouldn’t you all agree upon the positives of energy efficiency, both in terms of economic cost to yourselves and stopping money going to volatile countries?

The less you use, the less dependent you are upon the Middle East, Nigeria or wherever, and the more energy independent USA can be; bringing say oil consumption to a level which USA can support on its own.

16

I don’t want to spoil the party but do you guys have enough domestic reserves to meet your domestic consumption? I suspect not.

Try again.

17

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I think what we need to do is stop with all this Buy America, and instead stop the protectionist policies, stop government spending and taxing of individuals and businesses, stop the regulations, tariffs, and quotas, and stop with all this environmentalist crap that is actually hurting America.[/quote]

We cannot do that as citizens, unless we take to the streets. Rock’s idea is golden, because it is both easy to do, easy to spread the message, and if done on a massive level could show that we are tired of this bullshit. [/quote]

It is also expensive and entirely pointless because it will not hurt those companies one bit.

Not only comes most of your gas from Canada and Venezuela and NOT from the ME, but even if it did, you think us Europeans would stop to buy gas?

We wont, so if you limit yourselves to non ME gas those ship will come to Rotterdam and not New Orleans.

It is so entirely pointless that a politician should base a campaign on it.

18

[quote]huwwaters wrote:
Whether you’re a fan of global warming or not, wouldn’t you all agree upon the positives of energy efficiency, both in terms of economic cost to yourselves and stopping money going to volatile countries?

The less you use, the less dependent you are upon the Middle East, Nigeria or wherever, and the more energy independent USA can be; bringing say oil consumption to a level which USA can support on its own.[/quote]

Energy efficiency is not a goal in and of itself.

If energy is the cheapest way to achieve a goal it would be madness to use something else just to be “energy efficient”.

Also, one of two things crosses borders, goods or armies so all that energy autarky crap would probably only lead to more wars.

19

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I think what we need to do is stop with all this Buy America, and instead stop the protectionist policies, stop government spending and taxing of individuals and businesses, stop the regulations, tariffs, and quotas, and stop with all this environmentalist crap that is actually hurting America.[/quote]

We cannot do that as citizens, unless we take to the streets. Rock’s idea is golden, because it is both easy to do, easy to spread the message, and if done on a massive level could show that we are tired of this bullshit. [/quote]

Shell has been a weapons and energy company for a long time. During Vietnam they were kicked out of Arizona because they sold Napalm to the government to use on Charlie. Well, now they are one of the biggest gas companies in Arizona today. Yet, Shell still today sells weapons.