Oil Prices Hit New Highs

I know it is convenient to blame the big oil companies greed for the high price of oil but, Charles Maxwell of

Weeden & Co offers some other explanations:
National oil companies (NOCs) now control some 70% of the
production and just under 80% of the reserves of the world oil industry.
NOCs are commonly starved of sufficient funds to expand their
exploration and production because the funds they produce are critical
to keeping the governments of these countries in power and critical to
meeting the basic everyday needs of their people (in that order). There
is little left over after this job is done to develop skilled manpower,
emphasize new infrastructure to support exploration success, build
pipelines and refineries to deliver the oil to where it is needed and in
usable product form, and so on.

Maxwell goes on to point out that oil companies cannot support 60% of world capacity and development expenditures with only 22% of world reserves. I am unable to reproduce the entire report due to copyright restrictions but one can try contacting Maxwell@Weeden.com for a copy.

The whole report supports what Donald Coxe has long suggested; investing in basic resource companies whose reserves are located in politically safe areas. The Candian oil sands are a good example.