America is floating on oil

Did you know that the United States' production of crude oil is the world's third largest? We lag behind only Saudi Arabia and Russia. And this is true even though our domestic production has dropped since 1973's 9 million barrels per day to today's 5.7 (or so) million bpd.

But production has not dropped because we have run out of oil. "Peak oil" was way off target when it came to peaking of recoverable reserves.In fact, the Energy Information Administration forecasts that by 2035, US production of liquid fuel at 10 MBPD will be more than half the world's total, and the US could produce almost 15.5 MBPD if it wanted. (Not all of this liquid fuel will be petroleum based.)

So far in history, the US has produced 194 billion barrels of oil. There are 22 billion barrels of reserves, plus an estimated 135 billion barrels of undiscovered but technically recoverable reserves. Estimates of both known and undiscovered "sub-economic" resources are 800 billion barrels.

This country is simply floating on oil, especially when you include its continental shelves. The Gulf of Mexico alone has an estimated 48 billion barrels of oil yet to be located.

And so chart number one, showing where the oil is and how much:



And this explains why so little oil is being pumped from the continental shelf areas:


So what is wrong with this picture? The answer presents itself.

All data from: