I know, you probably are thinking this is another rant but I don’t plan on it being one. This is more of a “think about” thing.
What I am about to post here is based solely on freely available information that can be found on the web. You must decide if it’s true or not.
The world is seeing the highest gasoline prices ever and it just doesn’t seem that there will be any relief anytime soon and what I’m finding is for you to look at in one place and consider a few things.
From a general knowledge site:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/02/08/421061/big-oil-higher-prices-record-profits-less-oil/?mobile=nc
the five largest oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—yielded lower oil production than in 2010. But these five oil companies combined made a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011—up 75 percent from 2010
BP’s own website shows that they are closely tied to the middle east:
BP has a 100 year association with the Middle East that goes back to the foundation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909.
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9018421&contentId=7034199
ConocoPhillips website has posted:
http://www.conocophillips.com/EN/about/worldwide_ops/country/middle_east/Pages/index.aspx
ConocoPhillips has assets and operations in the following parts of the Middle East. Select the below to learn about the company’s activities.
ExxonMobile Website:
http://www.exxonmobil.com/MENA-English/PA/about_who_history.aspx
For more than 100 years, ExxonMobil has proudly worked with countries in the Middle East and North Africa to unlock new energy sources, develop new technologies, and add value along the entire energy chain.
Shell Website:
http://www.shell.com/home/content/are/aboutshell/who_we_are/history/corporate_history/
Becoming Royal Dutch Shell
Shell Transport’s activities in the East, combined with a search for new sources of oil to reduce dependence on Russia, brought it into contact with Royal Dutch Petrolem. The two companies joined forces in 1903 to protect themselves against the dominance of Standard Oil. They fully merged into the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1907.
Shell changed its logo to the scallop shell, or pecten, which is used today. By the end of the 1920s Shell was the world’s leading oil company, producing 11% of the world’s crude and owning 10% of its tanker tonnage. The 1930s were difficult: the group’s assets in Mexico were seized and it was forced to concede generous terms to the Venezuelan government when it nationalised its oil fields.
Thoughts on the above information:
The five big oil companies are posting record profits and in some cases have produced less oil during these high profit years. Of the 5 companies, I didn’t see anything that showed deep ties to the Middle East with Shell. The rest of them do show close ties with in the Oil Rich Middle East. Curiously, the Shell company website indicates something to the effect of the Venezuelan government nationalizing it’s oil fields and causing shell to need to expand into other countries for oil. I also have found that Venezuela has the world’s cheapest gasoline. A Google search should give you similar results.
This simple bit of information tells me a some things.
1. A country that has its own oil fields nationalized, can enjoy low cost gasoline. They can also export it like any other product.
2. We the U.S. are a food producing nation, we can farm in high volumes for export.
3. We have oil but I don’t know to what degree.
4. Any business is successful at the foundational level because there is a demand for its product.
5. We can eat our product of food but I don’t think oil producing countries can eat oil.
6. The right to food is viewed as a human right and getting food to hungry nations is a humanitarian effort.
7. The oil producing nations see oil as a controlling tool used to extract money from it’s customers because of our dependency on Oil. We have created our own monster of dependency.
8. Everyone must have food in order to survive….even the oil tycoons.
9. Oil is a commodity, Food is not.
10. We have the bigger stick in this fight of oil for our mechanical needs vs food to stay alive.
11. How long until we consider starving out oil producing nations that allow oil companies to drill in their country and destroy our economy and way of life when all we have to do is shut down the food supply?
What’s that? A cruel solution? Is anything else working? Is it any better that oil companies are controlling oil prices and “Starving” our way of life?
Rowland Ramble - 
Hydrocarbons and carbohydrates (as well as proteins) are fairly similar in structure, having come from similar sources and hence can be used interchangeably with a little work. Just as we have bio-diesel from soy and ethanol from corn and sugar, British scientists engineered a nutritional food paste out of oil over 30 years ago, so we should consider them all together (food prices in many places have been driven higher due to the use of bio-fuels). A better solution for our economic security and growth would be spending some small proportion of what we subsidize our fossil fuel addiction with on alternative energies and means of reducing overall energy usage; this would both keep us less dependent on other countries for our energy needs and put a new dynamic into the world food market.
I would also point out that using food as a weapon would only work if everyone joined in. We currently import a fair chunk of our own food and these oil producers get much of theirs from sources other than the US. Can we get Brazil (which imports no oil) to withhold all of their produce? Doubtful…