I'm confused. Again.

Please don't laugh. I'm old. It happens a lot. And I'm sensitive. Ok? Thank you.

The USA uses a lot of oil. Crude. Black Gold. Texas Tea. We all know that.

We use so much we have to import it in gi-normous tankers and pipelines from Canada (our #1 supplier) and Mexico (our #2 supplier). Hell, some of those tankers even come from that Commie Igor Chavez in Venezuela (our #3 supplier).

Our daily production (on land and offshore) has been running at just under 6 million barrels a day. It's been going up faster this year mostly because of increasing production in North Dakota. (ND now pumps more than Alaska or California.) Output in Texas and the Gulf is also increasing.

Combined, Texas, North Dakota, Alaska, California and Oklahoma now account for about half of the total US production.

Even though our production is increasing, and we're bringing it in as fast as we can, I learned today that British Petroleum has been granted a license to export, yes, export (as in ship it elsewhere) US crude (as it they got in here). And Royal Dutch Shell has applied for an export license. That's more of the stuff leaving the USA! Is that not confusing? Can anyone offer an explanation I might understand? I'd really appreciate hearing it.

I just love this -- Kayla Macke is a Shell spokeswoman. She told a reporter ... "We have applied to the Department of Commerce to export domestic U.S. crude oil," Macke said, adding that as a global commodity, imports and exports would follow supply and demand."

Earth to Kayla, Earth to Kayla: Have you not been paying attention to what's going on around here? Do you not think there's enough demand right here that the supply should not be following anywhere. It should be staying where the demand is! Am I wrong? Did I miss an e-mail somewhere? (maybe my spam filter gobbled it up)

There's more wackiness in the story... "Other than routine movement between Canada and the United States, we have not been involved in any crude oil export requests," a Vitol spokesman told Reuters, adding they had been shipping crude to Canada for some time." We've had companies shipping oil to Canada (where we're bringing it in from) for some time? Have you begun to join in on my confusion yet? Is any part of this making sense to you?

I'm going to have a drink now. I've got a nice, domestic cabernet waiting. I need a little chillin' time.