The oil world is gripped by the possibility that vital bits of Saudi oil infrastructure will be targeted.
Oil World forecasts that global production will reach a record 46.9m tonnes this year, up from 45.3m in 2009, with most of the increase coming from Indonesia.
Right now in the all-important oil world of the Middle East and North Africa, short-term supply, future prices, ownership and preferred trading partners are all up in the air.
Mr Cameron has no such oil lake to call his own, but his support would provide some political cover if Mr Obama decided to release oil from the SPR without backing from the International Energy Agency, the rich-world oil club and supposed custodian of the world's strategic reserves.
And that means, yes, increasing domestic production and off-shore drilling, but we only have 3 percent of the world's oil supplies and we use 25 percent of the world's oil.
But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil, which means that we can't drill our way out of the problem.
There might not be much pressure to drill now, with plentiful oil on world markets and reasonable prices.
If an executive order is issued to open the spigot to add oil to world markets, presto, prices relax.
Without cheap, plentiful oil the world will have trouble producing enough food to sustain its burgeoning population, and plane travel will be the least of our concerns.
By contrast, while the SPR holds substantial reserves, even a major release of 60 million barrels over six months would constitute less than 0.4% of the oil the world pumps over that timeframe.
The U.S. is the world's third-biggest oil producer, but its seemingly unquenchable appetite for oil also makes it the world's largest oil importer by far.
America uses 20 percent of the world's oil, and we've got 2 percent of the world's oil reserves.
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"What we have is a world class oil field sitting below a world class city, " said John Martini, manager of governmental affairs for Plains Exploration and Production Co.
Iran would attribute these to "the hand of God, " but the more pragmatic effect would be a very substantial portion of the world's oil suddenly removed from world supply.
This came as a stark reminder of the dangers facing America (the world's largest oil consumer) and the instability in the Middle East (home of much of the world's oil reserves).
Iraq has oil and the rest of the world needs oil, so there would be a lot of money and the reconstruction could happen quickly - if the people work together in the spirit of solidarity.
Canada is the seventh-largest producer of crude oil in the world and continues to climb up the list, with production in oil sands increasing regularly.
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And despite what sound like large investments in new oil fields in Russia and elsewhere, Saudi Arabia's share of the world oil market will actually grow over the next two decades simply because it has such huge reserves of cheap oil.
The oil market is so sensitive about Saudi Arabia because the country is so important to world oil production.
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China is the No. 2 oil consumer in the world, using up more oil on a daily basis than Japan and India combined.
That is especially true if, as posited by Matthew Simmons in his compelling new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, much of the world's putative reserve oil in Saudi Arabia is not actually there .
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Iraq is home to the second largest reserves of oil in the world, after Saudi Arabia, but it is likely to take many years to bring oil from untapped areas to market.
Since then, industrialised economies have reduced their dependence on oil, but it is still a crucial commodity, and OPEC still accounts for around 40% of world oil production.
High oil prices, and the world's largest oil-and-gas reserves, have helped pay off most of Russia's debt.
Back in December of 2009 Iraq invited the top Oil Companies of the world to come in and bid on the oil drilling rights.
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One way of looking at US crude oil supply and demand is to consider world production of oil, and the share of that production apportioned to the United States, by the arbiter of price.
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Thanks to fracking, the United States can become not energy independent of the rest of the world (oil will still a global commodity with prices set on the world market) but definitely more energy secure.
The rise in petrol prices following fears of a world oil shortage is also a factor.
Petrochemical and transport industries are typically the main drivers of growth in world oil demand.
The U.S. gasoline market is determined by many factors, most importantly the world oil markets.
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