Who's Your Oil Daddy?

As a political add on to Kate's last post, I thought it would be interesting to address the political side of things like the oil crisis. The recent oil spill in the Gulf Coast points to a rising trend in off shore oil drilling all over the world as an alternative to land based oil drilling. Why is this? Because the vast majority of oil resources to be found on land are almost totally depleted. Which is why drilling in Alaska, and off the coasts has become such a big thing.

However, offshore drilling has a number of dangers, the most prevelant of which we witnessed with this recent oil spill. Far from being the norm, such spills are much more common occurrences in offshore oil operations, than land based ones. Meaning that while few are likely to have the magnitude of the one in the spring, such spills are only likely to continue.

Of course, the biggest question (aside from complete destruction of oceanic environments) is what happens once the oil in the seas is gone too? The answer, as some might guess, is buy from Saudi Arabia. The large desert country, long the world's largest producer of oil, might soon be the world's only producer of oil. According to some estimates Saudi Arabia has only used 10% of their total oil resources. In however many decades, when all other oil resources have been exhausted, Saudi Arabia will still be going strong with production.

So who's your oil daddy? That would be Saudi Arabia.