To the Editor:

Recently, a letter writer asked why our domestic petroleum is being shipped overseas rather than used here at home to help bring down the cost of gasoline. I find that ignorance about the way petroleum is sold and priced on the global market is commonplace. It is even worse when I hear politicians declaring that we should be developing domestic sources of oil and gas to help bring down prices at the pump.

Oil and gas produced in the United States is not “our” oil. It belongs to the international companies that extract it from the ground, and these companies are in business to make a profit.