Research for Oil
November 1, 2011
In 2006, CNA brought together 11 recently retired three and four-star generals and admirals to form a Military Advisory Board (MAB), with the goal of examining the national security implications of climate change. Over the last five years, the CNA MAB has published three reports on the nexus of energy, climate, and national security. In this report the MAB focuses on the national security implications associated with shifting the U.S. transportation sector to alternative fuels.
March 1, 2011
The free flow of oil is critical to world commerce and global economic prosperity. Oil trade requires the use of maritime trade routes, which can span from hundreds to thousands of miles. Hence, oil tankers often travel through straits and canals to reduce transport costs. These passageways—referred to as chokepoints—are narrow channels along the most widely used global sea routes. This study evaluates how potential disruptions at critical chokepoints could affect the U.S. economy and economies around the world.
March 1, 1993
This research memorandum is one in a series of papers stemming from CNA's Future Russian Navy project, which was requested by the Director of Naval Intelligence. In this paper, we examine the evolving maritime interests of the former Soviet Union and those of Russia, its principal heir. Until the 1960s, the Soviet Union acted as a coastal state, protecting its own territorial waters. It then built up its forces and emerged as a significant global maritime power in the late 1960s. Now Russia is returning to a coastal focus. We look at the reasons for this latest shift in focus -- namely, problems in Russia's oil and fishing industries -- and the way in which the Russian Navy's missions will likely change to reflect the nation's new economic imperatives.
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September 1, 1986
Tanker tonnage and the numbers of tankers available to support U.S. forces in wartime are projected for 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2010. The key finding of the analysis is that the supply of tankers will fall far short of estimated Department of Defense (DOD) requirements. This rapid shrinkage of tankers is deemed likely because domestic crude oil production is projected to decline substantially, and because additional pipeline construction is underway. If DOD continues to rely on the Ready Reserve Force to fill the shortfall in numbers of available tankers, by the mid-1990s the fleet of reserve tankers would have to be expanded to about triple the size DOD currently anticipates. Accordingly, the study recommends that the Navy consider the alternative policy of outsourcing for delivering fuel to armed forces during wartime. rtime.
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March 1, 1986
A methodology is developed for projecting the size of the U.S.-flag tanker fleet over the next 25 years. Such projections are needed to assess whether the Ready Reserve Force can be an economical and effective program for maintaining adequate tanker tonnage to support both military operations and essential economic activity. Domestic crude oil and refined product flows are modeled, and a scheme is developed to allocate the flows between tankers, barges, and pipelines. Relationships are specified to convert the volumes of oil allocated to tankers into tanker tonnage requirements and into requirements for numbers of tankers of various sizes.
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February 1, 1977
The price controls on crude oil, beginning in February 1976, allowed the average price to grow at the same rate as the GNP deflator. An additional increase up to 3% per year was also allowed. Furthermore, the two adjustments to price were limited to a total of 10% per year. The use of the GNP deflator to adjust the price of crude oil is evaluated to determine whether it compensates for changes in the prices of purchased items and labor used in the discovery and production of crude oil. A price index for these costs is constructed and compared with the GNP deflator for the period 1965 to 1976.
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July 1, 1974
What should the United States do if some oil imports are cheaper but less secure than domestic energy production? In answer to this recurring question, the Oil Security System provides for more oil security and more imports too. It permits imports from insecure sources, either upon payment of a fee or if backed by commitments of emergency oil supplies issued by suppliers of secure oil. Such commitments, called guarantees, are obligations to sell on the market oil in an emergency from such sources as inventories, existing wells operated below capacity, capped wells, new wells drilled during the emergency, and diversions of U.S. exports of crude oil and refined products. In turn, possession of a guarantee is the qualification for receiving a fee-exempt import allowance. Both guarantees and fee-exempt import allowances would be bought and sold. Importers of oil would choose the cheaper way of importing between paying the fee and acquiring a fee-exempt import allowance. Under the Oil Security System the information on guarantees would at all times permit the government to maintain a detailed plan specifying where oil would come from and when it would be supplied in an emergency. In most situations, substituting an Oil Security System for an alternative import policy would both reduce the cost of importing oil and increase oil security in the form of emergency oil supplies.
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