In light of the uncertainty over the sectarian violence taking place in Iraq, the United States needs to develop an energy plan, says energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens.
Iraq, which Pickens said produces from two to four million barrels of oil a day, could go the way of Libya, which saw its production dramatically drop after the country's ruler, Moammar Gadhafi, was overthrown in 2011. Should that happen, he said it would be "tight, tight for oil," since Iraq was the only country currently "growing production, other than the United States."
"Someplace in Washington they need to sit down and develop an energy plan," Pickens told Fox News' "Happening Now" on Friday. "We've never had a plan. We're operating with some laws that were developed 40 years ago."
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Pickens said he considered the turmoil in Iraq a civil war, and predicted the global price of oil could reach $150 to $175 a barrel "if you took Iraq out of the equation." On a consumer level, analysts have predicted it could translate to $5 per gallon for gasoline, according to the
New York Post.
"We watch Iraq very, very close. And it's a very dicey situation right now, because they are in a civil war," he said.
Pickens said he would "like to get completely away from importing Mideast crude," which he estimated to be about "four million barrels of OPEC crude every day." He explained not all of that oil came from the Middle East, as some was produced in Angola, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
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