Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.1
Crude oil imports, 2009 (top 15 countries)
Country
Percentage
Canada
22.0
Mexico
13.9
Saudi Arabia*
13.1
Venezuela*
11.9
Angola*
7.1
Nigeria*
7.0
Iraq*
6.6
Brazil
4.2
Algeria*
2.8
Ecuador*
2.8
Colombia
2.7
Kuwait*
2.5
Russia
2.0
United Kingdom
0.6
Congo (Brazzaville)
0.5
Total
62.2
Source:
“Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries,” Energy
Information Administration, 2010.
* = OPEC countries.
(table 6.2). This is the reason the United States has decreased its petro-
leum dependence on OPEC since the Arab oil embargo in 1973.
The Cost of Imported Oil
Most Americans consider the cost of oil to be the published cost of a barrel
(42 gallons) of oil, which reached a record high in 2008 (equaling the cost
of a barrel of milk but below the cost of a barrel of bottled water; (
fi gure
6.1) before dropping to “more acceptable” levels later in the year because
of poor economic conditions in the developed world. But the price of an
imported barrel of oil is only a small part of the true cost of oil to the
American taxpayer. The principal reason we are not fully aware of the
true economic cost of our dependence on imported oil is that it is largely
in the form of what economists call externalities—costs caused by the
production or consumption of an item that are not refl ected in its pricing.
3
The main externalities related to oil are the federal tax breaks to
domestic oil corporations,
4
which average about $4 billion a year, and
the most expensive item, the military costs of securing supply lines and
