Originally Posted by pedex
Britain is a great example, theyve been caught literally with their pants down, the North sea fields declined sharply and quickly, and they were faced with becoming an oil importer in under 3 years time.
Actually the UK always did import oil, even whilst it was busy exporting oil extracted from the North Sea. Sounds a little crazy perhaps, the logic works like follows :-
[1] Export better quality (ie: expensive) North Sea oil.
[2] Import lower quality (ie: cheaper) foreign oil.
[3] Spend some of the money you've earned doing [1] & [2], on refining the oil you imported.
The difference is that the UK is now a *net* importer of oil. Of course, with gas prices around about $1.5/litre it was already expensive to fill up your car!