| Oil: A Strategic Commodity |
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| Energy |
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A Commodity is any item that can be bought sold, or traded. This applies to pretty much everything on the earth. Now a “Strategic Commodity” is a commodity that is indispensible and an essential part of any nation’s success. Oil has reached this status! Oil is needed for our military operations, transportation of our people, factories, and just plain energy which is used to heat our homes, and cook our food. America has become extremely dependent on oil and it is now a part of every citizen’s everyday life.
Our nation is nearly 70% dependent on foreign oil, and accounts for 25% of the global demand for oil. With oil being a “Strategic Commodity” it causes any nation that holds that majority of the world’s oil reserves to have an enormous amount of influence on the global economy. The organization that has been able to take control of this market is OPEC. OPEC is a group of independent business organizations formed to regulate production, pricing, and marketing of oil by the members. Now I am a strong component for drilling here and drilling now! But I do believe that this is only a short term fix to a long term problem. We need to also be looking for alternative ways to produce energy. In the last 25 years non opec oil wells have doubled their production of oil, opec has gone from producing 30 million barrels of oil a day to 32 million. Currently opec sits on 75% of the world’s oil reserves. This definitely puts this cartel in a very powerful position. If we increase our domestic production of oil opec will decrease theirs in order to keep oil prices high and the demand unmet. Even though the prices might not change we will be producing our own oil and will not be dependent on foreign oil. That is what makes this a short term fix and a necessary course of action, but not the ultimate solution. When we begin to think of alternative energy there are many possibilities. We have Wind, Solar, Nuclear, and Ethanol. I don’t claim to be an expert in types of energy but these are all forms of energy that could, in the end, reduce our dependence on oil, period. Luke Macias |
