Shocking - Big Oil Plowing Record Profits into Stock Rather than Exploration.

The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.

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In the first three months of this year, Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, shelled out $8.8 billion on stock buybacks alone, compared with $5.5 billion on exploration and other capital projects.

ConocoPhillips has already told investors that its stock buybacks for April to June of this year will come to about $2.5 billion — nine times what it spent on exploration.\

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25787722/

He said that the media has not been digging deep enough (surprise, surprise), preferring instead a simplistic "supply and demand" narrative.

they won't have to worry about a bunch of investors.:hide: