I must agree, if you can tap your neighbors oil supply, do it as long as you can, then when they are dry, you are suddenly the big man on the block. I think they are smarter than we think they are.
Hey Waterinthefuel!! Bidness, a world wide commodity bidness like the oil bidness is just not as simple as Jeeperman n' me Bro would have ya believe. Gravity does exist. If a cornsumer of oil can buy a bunch in Timbuk two fer X that cornsumer would not buy fer 2x X unless the transportation costs or political risks et al were x.
Jeeperman's argument is upside down. So is Bro Haut's. The Northslope is now running down after 30 years of production, (the ol' pipe in the ground is temporary: YAHSUREYABETCHA!!!!). ANWAR is prolly larger.
As Enron showed all of us a shortage at the right time can exponentially move the price of 'lectricity; oil works the same way. IF IRRATIONAL HATE AMERICA FIRST Liberals n' dim wit DEMS effectively restrict the worlds largest cornsumer nation from developing their own oil resources the WORLD DOES PAY ATTENTION. Shocking that bidness is like that: WITF!!!!
Since the dim wits stop the persuit of our own supplies the price is much higher then it would otherwise be. The real good part is they n' the MSM blame Exxon n' George Bush n' Cheney n' people dim wits n' geniuses alike actually believe the carp!!!!!! BTW: Gravity does work: no matter what me Bro Haut says!!! 

OMR, we rarely differ in our views, but this time I must agree with the other side. It's not evil to stick a pipe in the ground,
it's just temporary. Eventually, we will run out of oil. It may be 70 years down the road, but we will. The increase of supply now would be like increasing the amount of painkillers you give a dying person, it feels good in the short term, but long term, the results are the same.
NO WAY WITF. Why was Enron able to run up the price of electricity? Think that one over please. Bidness does not work the way ya think it does.
Pouring money into R & D for alternate sources of energy is fantastic, in my opinion. However, we must be smart with this. Increasing the price of food to fuel our tanks isn't the answer.