Investing in Growth Starts at Home

 

As you will see below, the amount of oil we consume daily versus what we produce here at home is wildly out of balance. We currently consume close to 21 million barrels of oil a day, yet we only produce 5 million barrels domestically. Producing only a quarter (1/4 th) of oil we need, we must import the rest. Our leading foreign suppliers are our friendly neighbors to the North and South, Canada at 16% and Mexico at 12%. To a lesser degree, we are also importing, (and thereby enriching) other countries, several of which do not support our way of life.

So why don’t we produce more at home? Because our laws make much of our domestic supply off limits and the supply that is available, too expensive to bring to market. Of our estimated 112 billion barrels of oil that could be recovered with our existing drilling and production technology, 90% of this is offshore or in Alaska. However, with the advent of new and far more environmentally friendly technologies, the outlook of drilling in these areas looks more encouraging. With the ability to recover this vital resource in an environmentally responsible way, political and environmental opposition should dissipate, freeing up much of this supply to replace a portion of our oil import.

Producing more of our own oil resources and seeking the balance of our global supply from nations that are our stable allies is good policy for our nation. It will not make us immune from global disruption or a rise in oil prices, but it will keep us from funding governments and radical regimes that are diametrically opposed to American principles and ideals.

Latest Statistics on Oil Consumption in the US vs. Domestic Production
(Provided by EIA):

Consumption. Total petroleum consumption averaged 20.8 million bbl/d during the first quarter of 2007, up 1.9 percent from the first quarter of 2006. For 2007 as a whole, total petroleum consumption is projected to average 20.9 million bbl/d, up 1.5 percent from the 2006 average. In 2008, total petroleum consumption growth is projected to slow to 1.1 percent. In both years, motor gasoline consumption is projected to increase by an average of about 1.1 percent per year.

Production. In 2007, domestic crude oil production is projected to average 5.10 million bbl/d, down from 5.14 million bbl/d in 2006. EIA’s projection of domestic crude oil production includes a hurricane-induced outage of 13 million barrels for the Gulf of Mexico. The total outage occurs over 5 months (June through October) with the shares distributed by the average historical outage for each month (June 1.7 percent; July 4.3 percent; August 32.8 percent; September 52.7 percent; and October 7.7 percent). With the startup of new deepwater production from the Atlantis platform later this year and from the Thunderhorse platform late in 2008, domestic crude oil production is projected to average 5.33 million bbl/d in 2008.