Top Oil suppliers in the world received bad news from Washington at the weekend when U.S. President, Barrack Obama stated his intentions of cutting his country�s over dependence on oil.
President Obama, it would be recalled, declared his readiness to cut U.S. dependence on oil as part of his election promises.
�The time is ripe to begin a gradual implementation of that plan,� he added.
The U.S is the biggest consumer of Nigeria's oil with over one million barrels per day.
The Obama administration declared the policy while opening a new front to impose $31.5 billion of taxes on oil and gas companies.
He maintained that the nation puts too much emphasis on oil and gas at the expense of other industries.
The chief economist in the Treasury Department testified before a Senate panel that current subsidies �leads to overinvestment� in the oil and gas industry.
The testimony went beyond previous statements about the need to protect taxpayers and was the clearest signal that the U.S. government was going to end its role in nurturing domestic oil and gas production.
�To the extent that current subsidies for oil and gas industry encourage over production; they would divert resources from other sectors of the economy, and are inconsistent with the current administration's goals of reducing greenhouse gases and to build a new and clean energy economy,� Alan Krueger, the Treasury's chief economist emphasized.
For years, Republicans had encouraged oil as part of an 'all of the above' strategy intended to reduce reliance on imports, especially from unstable parts of the world.
However, the Obama administration is trying to focus on World global warming.
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