One of the potential wild cards in the supply of oil to the US is the amount that can be produced from the Canadian oil sands. There was an informative article on some of the issues in The San Francisco Chronicle.. One of the more worrying comments was however at the end:

Although U.S. officials hope the output from Alberta's oil sands will be exported mainly south of the border, Chinese officials are trying to lock up long-term contracts for oil that would be sent through a proposed pipeline to the coast at British Columbia and then exported via tanker to China.

"There have been Chinese delegations in every skyscraper in Calgary," said George, the analyst.

"The Chinese are doing what the United States is doing, scouring the planet for every molecule of oil production they can get their hands on."

Many Washington conservatives are seeing red. "It's definitely a big worry for the Chinese to be trying to monopolize the oil sands," said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

"We're in a race for energy supplies, and we can't allow China to win this one."

Technorati tags: peak oil, China