Mea Culpa, i misspoke when I said Mid East. What I should have said to be more precise is Saudi Arabia. According to the US Geolical Survey there are 374.2 billion barrels of recoverable reserves in SA and there are 397 billion in North America. These numbers are from 2000 and don't even account for the new reserves discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. Which by the way, the Chinese and Cubans and Mexicans are starting to develop! Add the shale oil and coal in the west and we have plenty of energy to be self sufficient.

The price of oil has nothing to do with a long term shortage or an exhaustion of supply. It has everything to do with short term shortages due to barriers to the marketplace like OPEC, enviromentalists, and political action.

What I would like to know is why jet fuel costs so much as compared to gasoline. Its cheaper to refine (i think, not sure). My guess is that we demand way more gas and thus refinie much more creating a limited supply of jet a. I will ask my Valero golf buddies.

Wouldn't it be cool if the airline industry and Valero got together and built a jet a refinery?

http://www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/oil/2...l.mideast.html