Fatih Birol Quotes

The bulk of extra supplies that could be put into the market come from two places. One, they come from other Persian Gulf suppliers, of which Saudi Arabia is at the top of the list.

Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's oil import barn.

If a war started, the oil price probably would go up, as you said, maybe $5, $6 a barrel until you saw other oil from the extra supplies that are available elsewhere coming into the world, into the market.

Global crude oil demand is increasing, particularly in places like China.

The Asian nation's oil demand is expected to grow this year by 800,000 barrels per day and represents more than one-third of the total growth in global demand, according to the Energy Information Agency.

If you compare the size of our reserves of Saudi Arabia and the whole Middle East, it's like three times as much as all of that combined and that's just the easily, readily available 1800 billion barrels and there are probably 3 billion barrels that are commercially just under that, available.

But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.

We can get more energy out of the north slope of Alaska; we have available the ability to make ourselves less dependent on those uncertain sources of supply from the Middle East. And it's important we do that.

The reason you have high oil prices in the United States is that you do not have enough refineries to refine the oil. Do you know that there has not been a refinery built in America in 15 years.

The Persian Gulf region would have zero strategic importance were it not for the oil.

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history.

I think oil prices are down for two reasons. One is, there is a lot of supply. There is a lot of supply because the U.S. now produces a lot of oil and there is a lot of supply because the Saudis seem to want to produce a lot of oil, maybe to punish the Iranians and the Russians.

India is the Saudi Arabia of 21st century.

I want to give a shout-out to all my Saudi Arabian brothers and sisters. If you could all please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it.

The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.

Government experts have estimated that ANWR reserves would only provide enough oil for six months of U.S. oil consumption. In addition, the oil industry itself has estimated that it would take 10 years to bring this oil to the market.

Iraq is a small but very proud nation.

The U.S. now imports over half of its oil supply from the Middle East. This dangerous dependence on foreign energy sources is an issue of national security.

I covered the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Israel for ABC News.

Once upon a time, it might have been possible to deal with Iraq alone, without having to face the murderous forces of the other terror masters in Tehran, Damascus, and Riyadh, but that time has passed. Iraq is a battle, not a war. We have to win the war, and the only way to do that is to bring down the terror masters, and spread freedom throughout the region.

[Describing Iraq:] … floats on a sea of oil.

Biggest risk by far is strategic and is in the post-war period. When the British took over after WWII from the Ottomans, they found themselves being assassinated from almost the first day and saw the whole area in open rebellion within a year...What do we do when small bands of fanatic Muslims start creeping across the border from Iraq, Syria, or Saudi Arabia?

We are caught in the Middle East in supporting the bad guys in order to get rid of the worse guys.

The world’s demand for energy will never stop.

Saddam Hussein was not the cause of the problems of Iraq. He was the symptom of the problems of Iraq.