(Okay, I really mean Persian Gulf oil)
Alright, it's been forever since I've put anything substantive on here, so it's time I got off my butt and did something...
This has been a pet issue for me for a while, so I'm going to spout off about it now. Similar to Greywar, pseudosoldier, chiprj, and a number of others on here, I am/was in the military, and I am/was involved in the intelligence field. As such, it is in my professional interest to do research on current events, and terrorism has been a "current event" for the intel folks for a while (since before 9/11). It should come as zero suprise to most that there are ties to a number of individuals, organizations, and even nations in the Middle East, and various terrorist organizations. Funding is a big one of those "ties".
As such, I have made it a point to do my best to steer clear of purchasing oil from the Persian Gulf as much as I can. Can I guarantee that 100% of the oil (read: gas) that I buy is not from anywhere in the Middle East? No, not really. But, the U.S. Department of Energy does keep track of a lot of the import information, and they make it easily available for all. One of the products they put out is a list of the amounts, by percentage of total imports, that each major petroleum company imports from the Persian Gulf. This nice little page can be found here. They update this periodically.
Here's the short breakdown for those too lazy to click: Shell, Sunoco, Citgo, Sinclair - 0%. That's right, they import statistically 0% of their oil from the Persian Gulf (oh, I should define that too...it's listed on the site as being: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates). ExxonMobil - 28%..over a quarter of their imports are from the Persian Gulf. Chevron - 35%. ConocoPhillips - 8% (not bad, but not 0%).
Now, most of Citgo's gas comes from Venezuela, since it is a Venezuelan state-owned company. I used to buy most of my gas there....until Chavez came to power....now I'm trying to avoid them too. So, I buy most of my gas as Shell and Sunoco these days. Take some time, check out the list, and see where YOUR gas is coming from.
There are some more in-depth spreadsheets on the website as well, and I'm going to try to go through them more in the future, and put up some more posts detailing the sources of imported oil into the U.S..... but I need to get some more free time first.... In the meantime...cheers, and enjoy your oil.