Don't Start Packing For Vacation Yet...

I guess that you already saw the news that Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was hanging out with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford over the past few days. I guess George gave some demonstrations in firewood chopping and bush-hogging before saying a few encouraging words to reporters about oil prices.

Then a Saudi spokesman on Fox News, Adel Al-Jubeir, let the cat out of the bag for all to hear. Paraphrasing, he said that “the US needs to increase their oil refinery capacity in order to substantially affect gasoline prices and availability.”

Haven’t you already heard this from me right here in this blog before?

All of this, of course, is lost on most of the media and our population as we see this optimistic story about the Saudis spending $50 billion to expand their oil production capacity.

“The plan was announced during Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s talks with the US President, George W Bush, at his Texas ranch. Oil prices have been rising steadily over the past one year and have crossed the $58 per barrel mark. As per the plan, the Saudi Kingdom intends to increase its output from 9.5 million barrels a day to 12.5 million a day by the end of the decade and boost production to 15 million barrels over the longer term.”

Well I offer a big old whoop-te-do over this news…

You do remember that we currently need over 9 million barrels of oil per day just to fuel our cars?