The Future Homes of Oil

This is a great map of where we get our oil from -

- tip of the hat to Campaign for American Progress for the graphic

The darker the color, the more oil we import.

But this map is likely to change dramatically in coming years. It used to be that people who talked about peak oil were dismissed as tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. This is from an investor's blog, and has some interesting analysis. From John Mauldin's Outside the Box -

Over the last decade alone, China's oil consumption has almost doubled, to about 8 million barrels a day, about half of which is now imported. China... went from a net exporter in 1993 to importing 4 million barrels a day today ... with those imports projected to rise another 50% over the next 10 years.

- snip -

Mexico provides about 14% of the oil the US imports. On any given day that makes it either the #2 or #3 leading source for US oil imports after Canada and Saudi Arabia. Given that the US currently imports close to 70% of its oil needs, the Mexican oil is critical.

But here's the thing... Mexico will ship its last barrel of oil to the United States -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- about 6 years from now, in 2014.

So as demand for oil goes up in oil exporting countries, those countries stop exporting oil. Seems obvious, but think of the kinds of infrastructure in place to retrieve and transport oil, representing billions of dollars. If you include roads and gas stations and the systems in place to keep them supplied with gas, you're easily into the trillions.

What begins to emerge is the way our choices manifest in the physical world. This infrastructure will be an enormous drag on new technologies unless they work with the infrastructure in place or supercede it. These guys figure there is a lot of money to be made either way by betting on hydrocarbons.

We'll see.