Doesn't "Sarah Palin's oil" get shipped to Japan?

[SoCalDem]

So Alaska, which is part of the US, makes deals with FOREIGN oil companies, (one of which employs the governor's husband) , to pump the oil through pipeline that taxpayer money built, and then loads it onto ships registered in FOREIGN countries, and ships it off to Japan, and the money earned from this endeavor, gets divvied up between the citizens of Alaska...

So how exactly will Mrs. Moose"fix" our oil problem? Has she elaborated yet?

I'm all ears :)

[Hubert Flottz]

1. Oil's well that ends well...

They don't like to talk about the details because John was a POW.

[izzie]

2. Heck the pipe was made over seas.

It was always said that it was cheaper to send the oil out.

[Make7]

3. No, it does not appear to.

 

Just 4 percent of North Slope oil trickled to Asia between 1996 and 2000, before the flow shut off almost entirely. Since then, the only export was a single tanker in 2004, which delivered a load of oil to China en route to getting repaired at an Asian port.

The reason is that Alaskan oil fields aren't gushing crude as they once did. Alaskan oil production was cut in half between the 1988 peak and 2000. Now West Coast refineries soak up nearly every drop, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration.

Washington is one of the major destination points for that oil. A string of refineries near Anacortes and Bellingham rely on Alaska for more than 90 percent of their crude oil, according to a 2004 report from the Seattle and Pierce County chambers of commerce.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002245699_export17m.html

[zbdent]

4. so ... Alaskan oil production was cut in half by 2000?

and the Repukes were screaming that it was because there wasn't a refinery built? (even though only 1 request was put forth in the past 30+ years???)

[ThomWV]

5. It is foolish to think of us exporting oil - when all is said and done we don't.

It doesn't make any difference at all where the oil from Alaska goes, down to the lower 48 or over the seas to some other country. The point is that oil is generally shipped by the lowest cost method to where there is demand for it at the moment and at the end of the day we will be the ones who suck up the largest portion of the world's oil production from everywhere in the world. We consume the equal of every single drop produced in our own nation and then a good portion of the drops produced by the rest of the world too.

Once it comes out of the ground all oil is the same (well, all oil with the same properties) just like water in a pipe is all the same. If you live in a city that supplies its water via wells who is to say which well the water came from that you brushed your teeth with this morning? No one can say, that's who. You put the water in a pipe line and it all becomes the same water. Oil is like that too. It starts with an origin, then it is dumped into the world-wide distribution system and then it arrives at destinations and it is the total portion that arrives at our destinations that is of importance to us and what percentage of it originated within our country and how much of it originated outside matters but which drops came from where does not.

[central scrutinizer]

6. No - snopes link

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/alaskaoil.asp

[IronLionZion]

7. I thought so too...oddly enough because someone posted it on DU

It turns out that's not the case and posters in this thread have provided sources.

[SoCalDem]

8. Well ...crap.. I had always heard that oil goes onto the

World market, and that we did not use "our" oil here.. I stand corrected...But isn't the pipeline also getting kind of creaky and old? Has Alaska spent much revitalizing it?

Guess it's off to Google to see what they spend all that money on, besides giving it back to keep everybody happy...