If Iran Moves, the USA Has No Plan for an Oil Interruption

It will come as a shock to most Americans, but no presidential candidate -- nor any candidate, nor any local, state or federal government -- has developed a contingency plan in the event of a protracted oil cut-off. It is not even being discussed. Government has prepared for hurricanes, anthrax, terrorism, and every other disaster, but not the one threatened daily -- a protracted oil stoppage, whether caused by terrorism or Iranian intervention in the Persian Gulf.

It is like seeing a hurricane developing without a disaster plan or evacuation route. Our allies have oil shortage interruption contingency plans, but America does not.

The crude realities: America uses approximately 19 to 20 million barrels of oil per day, almost 70 percent of which is imported. If we lose just 1 million barrels per day, or suffer the type of damage sustained from Hurricane Katrina, the government will open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which offers a mere 6 to 8 week supply of unrefined crude oil. If we lose 1.5 million barrels per day, or approximately 7.5 percent, we will ask our allies in the 28-member International Energy Agency to open their SPRs and otherwise assist. If we lose 2 million barrels per day, or ten percent for a protracted period of time, government crisis monitors say the chaos will be so catastrophic they cannot even model it. One government oil crisis source told me hours ago, "We cannot put a price tag on it. If it happens, just cash in your 401k."

Exactly how could America be subjected to a protracted oil interruption, that is, a 10 percent shortfall lasting longer than several weeks? It will not come from hurricane action in the Gulf of Mexico, or even major refinery accidents or other oil infrastructure damage. Such damage would be repaired within days and the temporary losses absorbed by the small half million barrel per day global cushion available.

However, if one, two, or all of three of these vital chokepoints are hit by terrorists flying hijacked jumbo jets or shut down by Iranian military action -- the Abqaiq processing plant in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura terminal on Saudi Arabian coast, or the two-mile per sea lane Strait of Hormuz -- as much as 40 percent of all seaborne oil will be stopped, as much as 18 percent of all global supply will be interrupted, and as much as 20 percent of the U.S. supply will be cut off. Estimates on the U.S. shortfall could be even higher. Repeat attacks could prolong the crisis for many months, which is exactly what Al Qaeda and the Iranian regime have promised. Yet there is no government plan.

The best experts predict that if we suffer as much as a ten percent shortfall for any period of time, let alone twenty percent, it will be a neighbor-against-neighbor "Mad Max scenario" as food shortages swell and a storm of economic collapse surges across the country. Indeed, experts have been warning about this looming calamity for years. But the government and presidential candidates refuse to even consider the possibility or develop a contingency plan. Even if a secret plan exists, who would execute such a monumental undertaking?

Yet American allies have developed oil contingency legislation and other administrative plans that will permit their nations to survive a stoppage. These measures include severe vehicle traffic reductions, enabling fast alternative fuel production, mass vehicle fuel retrofitting, as well as rush public transit enhancement and mandated changes in driving habits. Unquestionably, for America to survive such a catastrophe will require a very painful, multi-layered program of immediate-term, short-term, mid-term and long-term fixes that will change our society and transform it off oil. The nation has no real alternative fuel delivery or retrofitting infrastructure. Lawmakers, mayors, governors and candidates have not developed such a plan during the half decade the interruption has been looming.

The notion that Saudi Arabia can make up the shortfall from an Iranian disruption is impossible. Saudi oil disembarks from Ras Tanura and it, too, must pass through the narrow two-mile wide sea lanes of the Strait. For America to have prepared intelligently for a Persian Gulf oil interruption would have required a decade of planning. To absorb the hit from a sudden oil stoppage as is now once again threatened, will be very painful indeed.

Edwin Black is the New York Times best selling investigative author of 'IBM and the Holocaust,' 'Internal Combustion,' 'British Petroleum and the Redline Agreement,' and 'The Plan: How to Save America When the Oil Stops -- or the Day Before' (Dialog Press), from which this article is adapted. More information about The Plan can be found at www.planforoilcrisis.com.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edwin-black/usa-has-no-plan-oil-interruption_b_1173702.html

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