Trinidad and Tobago is #1

Alright, so what are you thinking when you see a list with Trinidad and Tobago ranked #1? Carnival, right? Well, actually if you are an average American, you are probably thinking, where the hell is Trinidad and Tobago? Scratch that. If you are an average American, you are probably thinking, what the hell is Trinidad and Tobago? So, for those in that category, from Wikipedia we learn that Trinidad & Tobago is an island nation off the coast of Venezuela.

And the list that they came out as #1? That would be exported barrels of oil per capita. They export 385 barrels per person. This was surprising to me, as I didn't even know they exported any at all. They beat out Middle Eastern countries such as Kuwait (319), Qatar (312) and the UAE (292).

Thanks to The Audacious Epigone for this information. In his standard fashion he grabed data from the CIA factbook, sliced and diced it and came up some interesting numbers. He uses the CIA data so often and so well, I am beginning to suspect that he is actually an undercover CIA agent.

Because he is using Swivel with his data, I was easily able to download it, import it into Excel and do my own analysis. This is what I was excited about when I first heard of Swivel, so it is cool to actually do it. The graph you see is from AE's data and Swivel's graphing. Good stuff.

So here are a couple of interesting factoids, to add to AE's analysis.

• 5.1 billion people live in oil importing countries vs. 1.4 billion people that live in oil exporting countries.


• Norway actually exports twice as many barrels per capita (235) than Saudi Arabia (104). And instead of using that money to live it up Saudi Arabian Emir style, those bastards in Norway are saving it away in their Government Petroleum Fund, which currently has $250 billion dollars, investing Socially Responsible Funds to fund their Social Security programs. Norway has so much oil that they make all of their aquavit liquor travel to the equator (twice!) before it can be sold.


• Indonesia is now a net importer of oil. Aren't you supposed to get your OPEC membership revoked when that happens?


• I wondered why China was willing to supply North Korea with oil. Turns out that North Korea only uses 25,000 barrels of oil a year which translates to 16.5 gallons per person. Don't think the average North Korean is driving very far on that.


• US imports a little over 15 barrels per person, slightly less than Israel, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. Most European countries are slightly lower with Italy and Germany at 11, France at 12, and Spain and Sweden at 14. Surprisingly their are a couple of European countries that import more than the US, with the Netherlands at 18 and Belgium at 21.5.


• Singapore is far and away the largest importer per capita of countries with more than a million people at 64 barrels.