444 By Susan Ariel Aaronson and David Deese With a reaction by ...

Jafee, “if a company is not replacing reserves, and they are spending their case to buyback shares, that is called liquidating the company.”156And by their failure to invest early and sufficiently, the world’s people remainvulnerable to damaging price spikes, higher long term prices, and possible supplydisruptions from natural disasters, political upheaval, and/or terrorism. Many of the worldlargest suppliers—with the prominent exceptions of the United States, Canada, Britain,and Norway—have significant political instability and or policy uncertainty. As outlinedin Table 1 below, almost 70 percent of U.S. imported oil comes from Saudi Arabia,Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Iraq and Russia.157 Each of these countries has alow ranking in terms of democratic political institutions and a high risk of political,economic, and policy instability. The U.S. provides a good example of the repercussionsof continued reliance on such states for oil and gas supplies. From 2002 to 2007, in fact,the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on oil from fragile (relatively unstable) statessuch as Nigeria, Iraq, and Angola. The single largest absolute increase in exports to theUS over this period was from Nigeria, which is among the very least stable andtransparent states in the world.INSERT TABLE 1 CHAPTER 11 HEREThe table examines America’s leading sources of petroleum, their politicalstability and their commitment to democratic accountable governance. (All of thesesuppliers except Canada are relatively unstable, and all except Canada and Mexico) ranklow on scales of democracy and good governance.)451